


The Shield, The Spear, The Sword

by greygerbil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Closed Triad, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, High Fantasy, M/M, Mpreg, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Half a year after King Agnar married his best friend and lover Sigsteinn, his first husband Cadeyrn, who was missing for two and a half years, reappears in his castle.
Relationships: King Who Thought He Was Widowed/His Second Husband/His Returned First Husband, Original Male Character/Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 17
Kudos: 107
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



> I separated the story into chapters to make the POV switches easier to follow, but it can, of course, also be read in one piece with the "Entire Work" function.

On an amber morning in late spring, Cadeyrn moved for the first time in two years and seven months, three weeks, and four days. He had never stopped counting. Keeping track of the time he spent, bound by magic, a living statue, unable to even close his eyes or give himself to the comfortable oblivion of sleep, was all that had kept him from going entirely mad.

It was only his fingers at first. This was an accidental discovery, as he had stopped straining against the arcane shackles every hour of the day, like he had done in the beginning. They twitched, uncontrolled, then rested again. Though the magic had frozen him in time, kept his muscles from shrinking, unlike those of a man who had to lie in bed after a grave injury, he had not used his body in so very long. Cadeyrn shifted his leg, turned his head, shook out his arms. Something must have unravelled by accident, one thread in the complex weave of spells not accounted for.

The wounds and bruises from the torture he had been subjected to when they had first brought him to this place were as fresh as the day when they had been inflicted, but he did not miss the slighter, dull ache they had produced while he had been petrified. Their sharp bite told him he was truly alive again.

He was considering the closed window when he heard the ladder creaking under the trap door.

A complication, but it was better that way. He would have hated to leave without meeting Yngvar again.

Cadeyrn flexed his muscles, made sure that his hands could curl into fists. Then, he stood again the way he had for those two and a half years, his arms tightly pressed at his sides, his chin raised in defiance, his gaze pinned on the opposing wall. An eagle-eyed man would likely have spotted a few small difference after seeing Cadeyrn stand for seasons upon seasons in the hidden attic study as a grim trophy honouring Yngvar’s considerable magic ability. However, having watched Yngvar for so long, Cadeyrn knew that his captor, while talented, was likely too easily distracted to notice. He’d lost papers on his own desk, had gotten distracted from Lady Gudrun while kissing her, left the window open in coldest fall and winter so the rain hit his precious books while Cadeyrn had frozen in the cold, standing naked as he had, stripped down for the purpose of humiliation.

The wooden door in the ground opened, admitting Yngvar into the room. Him and Gudrun were the only people Cadeyrn had seen for all this time that he’d stood, fully aware, sleepless. He knew every small wrinkle in his skin, every strand of dark hair greying at the tips, the nervous way he moved his thin limbs, the folds on his dark blue robes embroidered with golden threat and adorned with diamonds, really too lavish for a court mage, but then, Gudrun loved him, after all.

Yngvar did not spare Cadeyrn a glance. As so often, he sifted between the scrolls that laid spread over the table which stood against the wall that Cadeyrn faced.

Cadeyrn’s feet were naked and thus quiet on the wooden boards. He did best with a sword or lance in hand, but he had always happily wielded the long dagger that assassins slipped beneath bones and through muscle, too, and so it was not the first time he approached an enemy on cat’s paws. He had been a good soldier in those days that seemed centuries ago now, not often truly overpowered, and the last time it had been because the blow came from the back, from the people in his ranks, Gudrun’s soldiers. Time to repay that treachery.

He wrapped his arm around Yngvar’s neck from behind and yanked him against his round stomach with a quick motion, pressing his other hand over Yngvar’s mouth.

“If I had the time, I would make you suffer. Count yourself lucky,” he said, with a voice like a rusty hinge, ruined by disuse, before he tightened his arms and tore Yngvar’s head to the side, breaking his neck. 

Cadeyrn wasted no time stripping the clothes off the man. They were about the same height, but the boots didn’t fit well. He squeezed his feet into them, anyway. It would be a long way back home and the air in spring could be cold. With the dagger Yngvar wore at his hip, he tore large holes in the back of the robes so that his translucent wing could fit through. Afterwards, he slit Yngvar’s throat and pierced his heart with the blade, the better to make sure that no mage would be able to put him back together.

As he belted the tunic under his stomach, he felt a stirring inside it, after that a soft kick. He did not let it distract him from his task of getting dressed, but his knees almost buckled with relief. It seemed his child, the heir to the High Kingdom of Lingarth, was still alive. It was eight months old now and had been for all this time. Cadeyrn pushed away his fury when he considered that, if he’d not been captured, his son or daughter could have been the right age now to be sat on a pony and speak babbling sentences and run the castle halls with the children of the servants and courtiers.

_No matter. We are both fortunate to be alive at all._

With quick hands, he searched through the table, the cupboards. He knew by now where Yngvar kept his private correspondence and he stuffed his pockets so full of letters and notes that they bulged.

The wind that rushed into the room when he opened the window rustled through his short white hair and smelled of apple blossoms. Gudrun’s castle laid surrounded by those trees, a sea of white and pink moving softly in the breeze. Cadeyrn stared. He knew the scent all too well, but all this time he hadn’t seen the orchard because he’d been positioned to face the wall.

He spread his wings, the wings his husband said looked like they belonged to a dragonfly, and tested that they carried him off the ground. Then he swung himself out of the window, into the air, and fled into the sky.

It was a considerable journey from Gudrun’s lands to Lingarth’s capital city of Ravensdale, a flight of a day if he’d been in his best form, which he was not. At dusk, Cadeyrn stopped in the middle of thick woods whose name he did not know, dug out sweetroots and washed them in a stream before he ate, feeling like he’d forgotten how to use his teeth. The thought of sleeping in the wild darkness made his skin crawl, so he only rested, and flew on as the morning light crept through the foliage.

Though he’d kept such careful track of time, it only occurred to him that it was the day of the Feast of Blossoms when, flying over villages and smaller towns, he saw people gathering in their best garments around large fires, throwing flowers into the flames and dancing to music he could not hear over the wind in his ears. When he arrived at the high walls of Ravensdale, he saw people stand packed in the alleys around the main street that led from the Willowsgate to the king’s castle. They were watching the traditional royal procession. Cadeyrn himself had headed it just once at Agnar’s side. Their marriage had lasted only a little over a year before he had been taken.

His curiosity got the better of him, trumped tiredness and pain. He slowed, lowered himself in the air. There were not many like him anymore, people of the old blood who had wings, and the few who did live in Ravensdale sat on rooftops and chimneys and looked not up, but at the march of knights in shining armour, bards in colourful dress, horses wreathed in flowers, and, at the very front, High King Agnar of the clan of the Dreadfeathers, the people who had built Ravensdale and its castle, the Raven’s Nest, a dark cape billowing behind him, pinned to his back by the round shield on which the black bird of his house was drawn with obsidian on silver. Cadeyrn’s heart seized at the sight and he wished he could have risked flying down far enough to see his face without causing a commotion.

Focused as he was, he needed a moment to notice tall Lord General Sigsteinn next to Agnar, Agnar’s best friend since the days when they had both been boys. The consort’s crown sat nestled in his thick blond curls.

Cadeyrn could not put words on what he felt, but it was not surprise.

Tearing himself from the view, he flew higher again, away over the city and then the battlements of the Raven’s Nest, and landed near where a guardswoman leaned over the merlons, watching the procession. He recognised her sharp beak nose and friendly blue eyes.

“There aren’t many of my kind left, Runa, but it’s foolish to be so blind to attacks from above.”

Runa jumped, gripping at her sword, then froze.

“Lord Captain Cadeyrn?”

She looked at him like she’d seen him rise from his grave herself. Cadeyrn held her eyes. He knew this would not be the last time that he would get this reaction today. He wondered what emotions he would read on Agnar’s face when the shock had waned.


	2. Chapter 2

“How are you holding up?”

Sigsteinn grinned, reaching to adjust the gem-encrusted golden crown that kept wanting to slip down over his eyes. He could barely hear Agnar through the cheers and singing sounding all around them.

“Just fine. You know how my father is. If the inhabitants of Bigsby didn’t celebrate our family at least once a season, he got nervous. Besides, don’t make it sound like I haven’t had reason to lead a victory parade or two.”

Agnar laughed and Sigsteinn let it wash over him with a smile. It had been a while since his husband had fought his way out from under the shadow of the darkest clouds, but that year after Cadeyrn’s death had taught Sigsteinn how much he could miss this sound.

“That’s fair,” Agnar decided, standing in his stirrups to look ahead. “For my part, I can’t wait to get my hands on some wine and meat. I’d rather spend a day at gallop’s pace than trotting around like this.”

“At least you do it now. Remember that time at Snowhigh when you convinced me to skip your queen mother’s ritual hunt to go steal pies from the kitchen instead?”

“From what _I_ remember, you didn’t need a lot of convincing.”

Agnar turned in his saddle and gave a last wave to the people who had come all the way up to the moat around the castle. Thinking back on it, Sigsteinn still remembered Agnar on that Snowhigh, a stroppy boy who’d just shot up in height over the summer and seemed to be all knees and elbows and cheeky grins. He wouldn’t believe him to be the same person now if he hadn’t already known him then. Ever since his mother’s untimely death close to his eighteenth birthday, fifteen years ago, Agnar had taken to the role as king with singular confidence and grace.

Sigsteinn allowed his gaze to rest on him, shamelessly drinking in his sight: his broad figure, muscles still easy to guess under the loose fit of his tunic and leather breeches, the strong jaw perpetually covered in stubble even when he shaved in the mornings, his black eyes and short, curly hair the colour of raven feathers, his dark skin, an heirloom of his father’s – who’d hailed from the Emerald Isles in the far south –, which was always covered in freckles at the first touch of the spring sun. Even had Agnar been a much less talented king, he certainly was the picture of one.

Sigsteinn had spent most nights in alehouses around the same time that Agnar had ascended to the throne. In fact, had Sigsteinn not so badly wanted to remain worthy of being Agnar’s friend and retainer instead of growing into a man who only had a position at court because his family owned silver mines and he’d used to chase Agnar around the training yard as a child, he would have wasted much more of his life than his youth.

The sound of the portcullis being drawn up at their approach woke him from his memories. Behind them rode forty knights carrying green boughs cut from hazelnut bushes and branches of golden bell blossoms, and a dozen bards marched with them. It would take a while for them to all make it inside and disperse across the courtyard.

As Sigsteinn checked that stable hands stood ready to take the horses and direct everyone inside, he caught sight of Solveig, Agnar’s castellan. She stood in front of all the waiting servants, out of breath, wide-eyed, her grey hair loose in her ponytail, as if she’d made great hast to come here.

“I think trouble is waiting for us,” Sigsteinn said, patting Agnar on the arm and nodding to their left.

Seeing that they were looking her way, Solveig was doing her level best to communicate with just her intense gaze that she needed their attention, but, considering her silence, likely didn’t everyone else’s.

They handed their horses to two stablegirls. Sigsteinn fumbled with the clasp of his heavy red cloak. The big ceremonial shield he wore, with the crossed swords of House Ironwill on it, was like a sack of stones on his shoulders. Normal armour would even have been more comfortable than the ceremonial trappings that his family prized so highly. He followed Agnar on swift feet, anyway.

Solveig took a few steps back so that they were out of earshot of the rest of the growing congregation.

“I know your presence is needed in the great hall as soon as possible, Your Highness, but a dire matter has arisen,” she said under her breath, her brows pulled downwards.

“What is it?”

Agnar didn’t question why she had disturbed them and for good reason. Solveig never bothered them for nothing.

“Your,” she threw a glance at Sigsteinn, “your _first_ husband has returned.”

Sigsteinn looked at her and then at Agnar, whose face showed the absolute confusion Sigsteinn felt as well. It was too puzzling a statement to even cause surprise.

“That’s impossible-”

“I know,” Solveig said. Her nerves had to be ragged, for she’d never have cut Agnar off otherwise. “I will bring you to him. He has asked to tell you his story himself, Your Highness.”

-

They hurried up the stairs to the eastern tower in which the guest rooms were located, following Solveig. She came to a sudden stop before a door flanked by two guards, who quickly stopped their whispering when she approached, remembering to knock at the dark wood once before tearing the door open. 

Behind stood Cadeyrn in ill-fitting clothes, alive, still visibly pregnant at the exact same size he had been two and a half years ago, looking so bruised and cut-up you could believe he’d had to win a brawl to get here.

Cadeyrn was of the old blood, the people who had lived in these lands even before the forbearers of Agnar and Sigsteinn had come six hundred years ago. They were few of them these days and in even less the heritage ran as strong as in Cadeyrn. His translucent wings spread out behind him. His snow-white hair was cut just as sensibly short as the last time Sigsteinn had seen him. His skin was the colour of bleached bone, criss-crossed with too many scars to count. His eyes stood just a little further apart than those of most humans and his pinprick pupils where surrounded by a pale, colourless iris, now looking sternly at Agnar and Sigsteinn. Those who didn’t have much contact with people of the old blood often thought it was the vaguely inhuman features that made him look intimidating despite his rather short size, but Sigsteinn had long determined that the perpetual hard stare he turned at the world did much more for that. Cadeyrn could look just as solitary in a group of his own people.

The last time Sigsteinn had seen him, those bright, cold eyes had been motionless, staring at nothing as Cadeyrn’s blood-stained body laid in the dirt.

“Agnar, Sigsteinn,” Cadeyrn said, lowering his head in a greeting.

Solveig retreated hastily. Sigsteinn wondered if she would listen at the door. She was a good and true retainer, but he wouldn’t have blamed her because his mind was racing and he could not come up with any story to explain what he was seeing.

“This isn’t true. I saw your corpse. I checked your pulse,” Agnar managed.

The battle at Threestream Valley was where they’d lost him. Sigsteinn and Agnar had ridden with the main thrust of the army. Cadeyrn, eight months pregnant, could not do as much, though Sigsteinn knew he’d wanted to. He was a warrior with endless energy and seemingly no concept of pain. Agnar and Sigsteinn had met Cadeyrn fighting off raiders at the coast, on a day that would now be five years ago. He had joined their battle on a broken ankle and with fresh burn wounds all up his left leg and arm, fighting like a storm. Later, they had learned that he was a minor lord from the region. Not a day ago, the village where he lived had been burnt down in a nightly attack from the coast, his castle pillaged, his family slaughtered with only him remaining; yet he’d picked up his sword, rose from the bloody debris, and had kept fighting.

But despite his uncompromising nature, at the battle of Threestream Valley, Cadeyrn had wanted to protect his unborn child, so instead of joining the army that met the invading forces from the neighbouring kingdom of Skelbeck, he had acted as a scout and then drawn back to overlook the battle from atop a jutting cliff over the valley where the knights would meet. It should have been a safe spot, well-guarded by their own. However, when Agnar and Sigsteinn returned victorious, the defenders there had been ambushed and Cadeyrn was just one of the dead bodies lying in the bloodied grass; and as Agnar and Sigsteinn ran to capture the culprits, a fire spread from a nearby military campsite, so in the end Agnar hadn’t even had his husband’s body to bury, but only charred bones.

Though, Sigsteinn reflected blankly, it probably had not been Cadeyrn’s bones they had interred, in the end.

“Yes, I know you did,” Cadeyrn said. “Do you remember who presented my body to you?”

Sigsteinn was well-aware that that day was still etched in Agnar’s mind. Even the memory could still send him into a rage today.

“Sir Kjeld,” Agnar said, without a hitch. “One of Lady Gudrun’s retainers.”

“I remember Sir Kjeld, too. After he set the fire, he and his friends took me to Gudrun’s castle. He tried to get me to talk about your next moves against Skelbeck.” Cadeyrn’s thumb brushed along a dark bruise on his arm “He was the one who took my clothes and signet ring to sell before they propped me up naked in the solar of Lady Gudrun’s court mage like an old statue, a memorial to my own foolishness.” He made a face like he had a bitter taste on his tongue. “I should have known to look over my shoulder that day.”

“But how are you here now? You’re still pregnant!” Sigsteinn burst out, as Agnar had sunken into stunned silence.

“Yes, and the child is alive. Lady Gudrun’s court mage, Yngvar, put me under a suspension spell. An impressive feat, I must say. He kept me like this for all this time in case the cause of the supporters of Skelbeck would ever grow to such size again that they might make use of a convenient hostage – or two.” He gestured at his stomach. “However, even a master will eventually make a mistake, especially if he grows complacent, and yesterday, he did. I could move again.” Cadeyrn raised a brow, something unpleasant in his fleeting smile. “An impressive mage. A shame he’s not around anymore to teach anyone else his tricks.”

Sigsteinn felt a sudden twinge of terror at the idea. He’d seen suspension spells, but usually they worked maybe for a day, or for how long it took a prisoner to be taken to jail. While the person was captured in the moment that the magic had hit them, they remained fully aware of what happened around them. Cadeyrn had spent this long in such cruel captivity while Agnar and Sigsteinn hadn’t even thought to look for him.

By the haunted look on Agnar’s face, he’d just had the same thought.

“Fuck!” Agnar spat. “We considered betrayal, of course. There was little other way they could have gotten around to you and we always knew there were sympathisers with Skelbeck’s cause. However, we thought all the victims dead. We had no witnesses.” He showed his teeth in a scowl. “Lady Gudrun, that witch! I must admit, she’s an actress. I never even suspected her.”

“I survived, so did our child,” Cadeyrn said matter-of-factly. “Would the others had, too. I had good people with me that day: Vili, Broder, Valka, Dag, Birna...” He shook his head. “But I heard that you won the war with Skelbeck. Gudrun and Yngvar were livid about it. One of my few pleasant memories of the last years.”

They all stood in silence for a moment.

“We need to send someone to Lady Gudrun’s castle,” Sigsteinn said. It wasn’t the soft words he should have had, but he knew how to keep his eyes on necessities, and though he’d always felt he knew too little about his best friend’s husband, he at least remembered Cadeyrn has always appreciated as much. “Though she’ll long have noticed you slipped her, won’t she? She’s probably be on a ship by now.”

“If my absence hasn’t tipped her off, her dead lover should have,” Cadeyrn said icily. “You’re right, she should be long gone, along with everybody else involved. Still, it’s worth a try.” He stretched the fabric of his clothes, reached inside to unearth crumpled sheets of paper. “These belonged to Yngvar. I took all the letters and notes he kept that I could find. I don’t know how useful they will be, I just grabbed everything in sight. At least it should prove I was deep in her castle.”

“I’ll send a delegation and have her lands seized for high treason,” Agnar groused. “Let’s see which of her retainers squeals when pressed.”

“These letters should go to Astrid,” Sigsteinn said, pointing at Cadeyrn’s haphazard collection.

“Ah – she’s still spymaster,” Cadeyrn murmured, more to himself.

“She is. You should talk to her about who else you remember to be involved, too,” Sigsteinn said, aimlessly grabbing one of the papers without seeing it, too shocked to read, just wanting to feel like he had something to do with his hands.

Cadeyrn nodded his head and opened his mouth to answer, but Agnar raised a hand.

“Yes, talk to Astrid,” he said, “but later. I’ll send one of her people to take the letters and you can give them the names. Before anything more happens, though, you need to rest. If you flew here, you can barely have stopped since yesterday.”

“I can talk to her now.”

“Cadeyrn.”

Cadeyrn narrowed his eyes at Agnar, but as so often when Agnar used that tone on him, he eventually relented, even if he raised his chin proudly as he averted his gaze. It was the wordless sign that he agreed to Agnar being right. The interaction was familiar and alien to Sigsteinn at once. He had not thought he would ever witness it again.

Agnar stepped forward and hugged Cadeyrn to himself. Sigsteinn wondered if he’d have kissed him had Sigsteinn not been standing here. I wouldn’t have begrudged either of them that much, but the thought came with the realisation that Cadeyrn had to be told how things had changed between Sigsteinn and Agnar since he had left.

Cadeyrn stood impassive in Agnar’s arms, but then suddenly clung to him, just for a moment. He let go just as quickly, as if he was ashamed, straightened his back and clasped his hands behind his back.

“I will send up more servants. You should have a hot bath, clothes, food... I will ask a midwife to check on our child,” Agnar said, stepping back. “Elva should look at your wounds as well. Damn Gudrun and her ilk,” he muttered, turning Cadeyrn’s head to look at a nasty laceration on his cheek.

“Don’t worry about us,” Cadeyrn said. “I was strong enough to make it here and the babe is moving. I do want to talk to a midwife, though, to be sure.”

Agnar nodded his head, still holding Cadeyrn by the jaw. Cadeyrn looked between him and Sigsteinn.

“Since when have you been married?”

Sigsteinn swallowed. He’d known he’d have to have the conversation – he hadn’t thought it’d start this way. His startled gaze met Agnar’s, who looked embarrassed and surprised at once, dropping his hand from Cadeyrn’s face.

“How did you...”

“I saw the procession when I flew here. Besides, you’re wearing my crown,” Cadeyrn said, looking at Sigsteinn.

“Right.”

He’d completely forgotten about that. Standing there under his heavy gaze, he half expected Cadeyrn to produce a sword and attack him. However, the glower on his face was apparently still just habitual.

“We thought you were dead,” Agnar began.

“You’re the king, Agnar.” Cadeyrn shook his head. “You were late to marry even me, past thirty, and when it looked like I had died, I took your heir with me. Of course you couldn’t tarry too long.”

“We weren’t betrothed over your grave,” Sigsteinn pointed out. “We only got married around last winter solstice.”

“That _is_ long. I expected you two to be married much faster than that if I ever died,” Cadeyrn answered without any inflection to betray what he thought about his own words.

“Wait – I was not his lover _before_ you were gone!”

Sigsteinn spoke out more in defence of Agnar than himself. He didn’t really know how long he’d been aware that he loved Agnar, but he couldn’t pretend to himself that it hadn’t been at least as long as when he’d felt the stab of jealousy seeing Cadeyrn receive the consort’s crown from Agnar’s hands on the day of their marriage. He didn’t think he’d been so obvious, but how in the gods’ names was anyone to tell what went on in Cadeyrn’s head most of the time? Agnar, he was certain, had never thought of betraying his husband, and Sigsteinn wouldn’t have wanted to break up a marriage, anyway.

“I didn’t say that,” Cadeyrn answered.

Sigsteinn threw a wild glance at Agnar in the hopes that he could disentangle what his husband was trying to insinuate, but Agnar was just rubbing a hand over his face and shaking his head.

“Is this child still your heir?” Cadeyrn asked, before Agnar could weigh in.

“Yes,” Agnar answered. “We figured we would eventually have to employ magic, but that would take a toll on Sigsteinn’s body. We wanted to see if we could make it work on its own at first.”

Neither Agnar nor Sigsteinn had ever gotten pregnant, though neither had lived as priests, so it stood to reason that it didn’t happen naturally for either of them, the way it had for Cadeyrn. Of course, any man or woman could be helped along to have a child of anyone else if they had access to the best mages in the country as a king would. However, if the natural inclination was not there, it could take much toil and pain and was even dangerous at times. They could not risk Agnar on such an adventure, the only living heir of the Dreadfeather House, but Sigsteinn would have happily done it if necessary.

“I see.” Cadeyrn smoothed a hand down over his stomach, thoughtlessly so, it seemed, dropped it quickly. “You two need to go downstairs to the feast. People will wonder why you didn’t come into the great hall after the procession. I’m sure you’d rather have a concrete plan about what will happen to these marriages before you have to explain yourselves.”

“He’s right,” Sigsteinn said reluctantly.

Agnar looked deeply unhappy to leave Cadeyrn on his own, but even he could not deny the truth of their words.

“I will check on you later,” he said as a promise.

Agnar reached out to squeeze his shoulder again before he turned around. Cadeyrn stood in the middle of the room, looking after them until Sigsteinn closed the door, stiff as if he’d been hit with another spell.

Solveig had waited at a respectful distance, a few steps down the winding tower stairs. Curiosity was written all over her face.

“It’s him. His story makes sense. He needs a midwife and Elva. Let the servants heat a bath for him. Someone from the kitchen should bring him the best cuts of whatever we have at the feast,” Agnar said after taking a deep breath. “And don’t spread word of his presence around yet if you can help it.”

“Of course,” Solveig said with a nod.

By tomorrow midday, everybody would know, anyway, but Sigsteinn hoped they’d at least manage to call the council together before the gossip left the castle. 

Sigsteinn and Agnar walked slowly down the stairs, side by side.

“Well – fuck,” Agnar said.

Sigsteinn just nodded his head. He didn’t ask if Agnar wasn’t happy that Cadeyrn and his child were alive – he didn’t need to pose such daft questions. That part obviously wasn’t the problem.

Seeing Cadeyrn again had brought back in a rush the full knotted mess of feelings he’d always had for his best friend’s husband. He at once found him confounding, as unreadable as a book full of ancient runes, but understood too well how Agnar was fascinated with this stern man who seemed at times devoid of feeling and yet had attached to Agnar with a quiet depth of passion that made him more than worthy in Sigsteinn’s eyes. He’d never begrudged Cadeyrn his marriage to Agnar, but he’d kicked himself often for never admitting to himself that he was in love until it became clear Agnar had chosen another.

And now? Would he step back from Agnar’s side without a fight after all they had gone through together? He knew he probably should, but his heart rebelled at the thought.

“What’s going through your mind?”

“Well, fuck,” Sigsteinn echoed.

Agnar gave a humourless laugh.

“So what do you think Cadeyrn’s thinking. Same thing?” Sigsteinn asked after a moment.

Agnar sighed.

“I do believe him that he’s not mad that we got married. He’s too sensible. I don’t see how he could be happy about it, though.”

Sigsteinn nodded his head, tugging at his braided beard, a bad habit.

“I just know I wish I had burned Skelbeck to the ground,” Agnar muttered. “But what would it have helped? The viper was in my own house.”

“We’ll deal with that.”

At least that much Sigsteinn could promise as Agnar’s general. How the rest would turn out, he had no idea.


	3. Chapter 3

“I came in last night, but I ran into Elva and she said she told you to try to get some sleep. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Don’t worry. I was awake, it would have been fine.”

Agnar believed as much. Cadeyrn didn’t look like he had gotten any rest at all. The same was true for Agnar himself, of course. All night, his mind had moved between bloody fantasies of revenge and anguish at the torment his husband had been through while he had spent his night rolling in the sheets with Sigsteinn.

Cadeyrn tugged at the tunic he was wearing, a thick, dark green garment that Agnar had had made for him to accommodate his new size and the fact that Cadeyrn had started growing cold more easily during the pregnancy.

“I’m surprised you still had some of my clothes.”

“It would be a waste to throw them away, right?”

Cadeyrn did him the favour of simply nodding his head rather than forcing Agnar to admit that he hadn’t been able to get rid of any of Cadeyrn’s possessions at all, though what little he had brought to the Raven’s Nest hadn’t been of particularly great value, owing to the small lands his family had owned, how much of even that had been burned and plundered by the raiders, and Cadeyrn’s own status, which had been quite far down the line of succession until his entire family tree had gone up in flames. Agnar had moved his belongings from the consort’s chambers to a storage place, but he had always made sure servants kept the clothes and books free of moths and rats and polished the weapons and armour.

“How are the villages?”

Agnar did not have to ask which villages Cadeyrn meant: Longhope, Fadmoor, and Rackheath, and the farms and fisher huts that were strewn between them. Cadeyrn was the fourth child of his parents, but with the attack on his family had suddenly come to inherit their lands. Before that, he had been a knight to his house, travelling between these villages to keep away robbers and thieves and defend against wolves stealing sheep, and he knew the names and faces of many people who lived there.

Though Agnar was aware it was not possible for him to look after land that covered so many leagues as his kingdom with the same determined care with which Cadeyrn took to the couple of thousand people that lived in his domain, he had found himself looking to Cadeyrn as an example in stewardship, seeing him make much of little income and pouring all his effort into his duties. Even at eight months pregnant he’d still flown home to make judgements and administrative decisions in his own castle. Agnar had never minded at all that his attention was thus divided between his lands and the kingdom and in fact had followed him whenever his own tasks had allowed it. Though its history was tragic, seeing the salt-bitten, soot-stained stones of Cadeyrn’s seaside motte and bailey castle used to bring him peace just because he knew how much Cadeyrn enjoyed being there.

“They’re well. I chose to oversee them personally and leave the castle in the care of your retainers instead of giving it away. The construction of the new temple in Rackheath finished just last year and... well, there’s scrolls, if you’re interested in the details, but there haven’t been any raids lately.”

“Thank you,” Cadeyrn said, with relief in his guarded voice.

“Of course.” Agnar looked him up and down. “I still can’t believe you are back.”

“At some point, I’d stopped believing I’d return, too,” Cadeyrn said after a long moment of hesitation. “Still, the first months were the worst – when I did not know how the war had turned out and if you were even alive.”

Agnar pulled him close, turning him sideways in his arms, so that he could squeeze him against his chest without putting pressure on Cadeyrn’s belly, instead holding him tight around the shoulders. It took a moment, but Cadeyrn sagged against him. The first time he had done so had been months into their marriage, which itself had been preceded by a half year-long courtship and even longer acquaintance. To know that trust was still there made Agnar’s heart soar, despite the chaos that laid around them. He let one hand wander softly over Cadeyrn’s side.

There was a knock on the door. Cadeyrn straightened and stepped out of Agnar’s reach.

“Yes?” Agnar asked gruffly.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Sigsteinn said, looking through the gap. “I’ve gathered the council.”

“Oh – right.”

Immediately, Agnar felt guilty that he’d forgotten that he had sent his husband to that task. He looked down at Cadeyrn.

“Do you feel ready to come along? It’s important. As you said, we need to figure out things between us before everybody hears about your return. We will try to make it brief.”

He’d expected the nod. Cadeyrn was nothing if not dutiful to a fault.

They walked in silence down the tower stairs and into the round council chamber. Sigsteinn had been the leader of his armies for many years and now also held the double position of the king’s spouse, who always had a seat in the council meetings, meaning that they were missing one chair at the table right now. Agnar offered Cadeyrn his own seat before he could get it in his head to be the only one standing in his state. Instead, Agnar positioned himself between Sigsteinn’s and Cadeyrn’s chairs, watching the collected faces of his other councillors.

His steward Birgit Fastwater, a shrewd merchant with impeccable business sense and a smile that could make coin disappear out of anyone’s pocket, and the high priest Ingemar, a scion of the prosperous Hawksclaw clan, were staring openly at Cadeyrn, though Sigsteinn would have informed them of the reason for the meeting. His chancellor Halvard Springmeadow, who had served on his queen mother’s council for many years already and was now bent with age, but no less clever than before, only bowed his head before Cadeyrn, who returned the gesture. Astrid, Agnar’s spymaster, had started out as a lowborn kitchen girl in his mother’s court thirty years ago and had worked her way up on quiet feet. She had probably learned of Cadeyrn’s return before Agnar had, since nothing in the castle escaped her, and so had long had time to school her face to show nothing but polite reverence.

“I trust you’ve been informed why we’re here,” Agnar began. “Cadeyrn, perhaps you want to repeat how you came to survive.”

Cadeyrn did, in words just as short and plain as he had yesterday.

“I already gave Astrid the letters and notes I stole,” he finished, nodding at her.

Agnar raised a brow. “That’s news to me.”

“She sent a chamber maid to spy on me,” Cadeyrn answered with a shrug. “I told her to bring Astrid.”

“Clumsy girl, that one, but being so nice, she has potential. I should know better than to throw her at steel-hearted people who are entirely indifferent to anyone’s sweetness,” Astrid said with a smirk.

Cadeyrn contemplated her words for a moment before he granted her evaluation a nod.

The two of them had always gotten along, and as much as a withdrawn man like Cadeyrn could be said to have friends, Astrid was one of them. Cadeyrn’s proud stiffness made people think he would turn his nose up at deception and subterfuge, but Agnar knew that to uphold his duties Cadeyrn was just as happy to ambush an opponent in the woods as to face him sword against sword in the open field, which gave Cadeyrn a natural appreciation for Astrid’s tactics. Knowing that her visit may have pleased him, he swallowed his reproach to her that she had disturbed his husband as he was resting, even though he had a feeling she had not sent him the very obvious spy by accident.

“Did you have time to go through the letters yet?”

“I know Cadeyrn is right about the affair. Yngvar and Gudrun liked to express their affection in the written word, too. Explains why she never got married.” She shrugged. “Still, since Yngvar is dead, he cannot help her now. Me and my people are still collecting the names of those that might have been involved in their plan. By midday, we will have a list for you, Your Highness,” Astrid finished.

Agnar nodded at her and collected all his will with a quiet intake of breath.

“Since news of Cadeyrn’s survival will soon be all over the city, I will call a general assembly of my retainers for the afternoon. I’d be interested to hear if somebody here could tell me to whom I’m actually married now.”

His council was well-aware that both of his marriages had been love marriages – the first to a minor lord who wouldn’t have had a snowflake’s chance in the fireplace to win the king by the rules of the political game, the second to a man who had been his best friend since childhood days. He could not blame the councillors for exchanging glances full of discomfort at being asked to rate them now. Agnar knew they had no good answers for him, either, because there weren’t any.

All eyes finally came to rest on Ingemar. As the high priest, the greatest authority concerning marriage laid with him.

“The rule of the gods is clear in this,” Ingemar said slowly. “The first marriage is above the second if death did not cut it short. You married Sigsteinn in good faith, but your husband wasn’t dead and so the second marriage is void.”

Agnar looked down at Sigsteinn, who could not hide a frown. However, he gave a reluctant nod. Cadeyrn’s face was simply inscrutable.

“I have nothing but respect for the gods,” Birgit said, after allowing a short pause, “but I have to say that in this case, we need consider that Lord General Sigsteinn is of House Ironwill and if I know his father at all, he will not react well to such a decision. Considering that half the country’s silver mines are in his domain...”

“He is well-connected, too,” Halvard added. “If he convinces other lords that this is a targeted affront, we might have a lot of trouble at our hands.”

Now Sigsteinn did lean forward. “Surely we can find some way to placate my father!” he snapped. “The kingdom and the gods don’t have to bow to one old man.”

“Well, we can try,” Birgit said, but the doubt in her voice was taken up by the looks in the eyes of the other councillors. “Yet...” She left the sentence unfinished.

“Yet there is no one left to get offended on my behalf, which would make it easier to void my marriage,” Cadeyrn finished. “There’s no use lying, Mistress Birgit. This country came out of a war not too long ago and a quarrel with House Ironwill could disturb the peace.”

She inclined her head at him, likely grateful that he had said it before she’d have to find the words.

It was true, Agnar knew, too. The people of the old blood were so few now they were not a political force, and also so separated that no one really claimed Cadeyrn’s specific branch. Also, though he had not been an unpopular consort, people had always found him more difficult to engage with than the more personable Sigsteinn. Whether Sigsteinn wanted it or not, Cadeyrn was alone and Sigsteinn had all the powers in the kingdom behind him.

“There is a possibility,” Halvard said in his soft, clear voice. “It hasn’t been implemented in some generations in your family, but it has never been forbidden by law.” He looked up at Agnar. “Lord General Sigsteinn remains your husband and Lord Cadeyrn becomes a member of your harem.”

“A harem?!” Agnar called out. “That’s an old law indeed! My family hasn’t held to those traditions for a hundred and fifty years, at least. Am I some raider chief and Cadeyrn a stolen prince? You ask me to dishonour my first husband?!”

“I ask you to think of a way to make your child legitimate, Your Highness,” Halvard said, not without an edge. “I’m sure considering the unusual circumstances, no one would think you a lecher.”

Agnar opened his mouth and closed it with so much force he heard his teeth clicking. He had no counter argument. Even if Sigsteinn hadn’t been of his father’s illustrious family, he didn’t want to throw that marriage away, either.

“I think it’s an acceptable suggestion,” Cadeyrn said.

“Necessary, maybe. Acceptable, I don’t know,” Sigsteinn muttered, staring at his folded hands on the table.

“You can be the only husband, and the only lover, but you cannot expect me to make my child a bastard without a fight,” Cadeyrn said sharply, turning to him.

“That’s not what I meant! I’m not trying to push you out, man! I just-” Sigsteinn took a deep breath. “Whatever. Why not? Let my father’s whims rule these marriages as he rules everything.”

The bare anger in Sigsteinn’s voice and the confrontational look in Cadeyrn’s eyes told Angar he had to make a decision before a fight started in earnest. It was easy enough, after all: he really only had one choice and he could decide to dawdle or not.

“Then Cadeyrn will be my man and Sigsteinn my husband. The child is my heir. This is what I will tell the assembly tonight.”

-

Agnar brought both Cadeyrn and Sigsteinn before all the lords and ladies he could find in so short a time to make the occasion seem legitimate. They each had always played the role of console successfully, if with different slants. Cadeyrn stood wordless and stern at his side like a guard where Sigsteinn would usually laugh and cheer along with the crowd to his speeches. He was silent this evening, though, but he managed to wrench a smile onto his face here and there so it wasn’t too obvious that he was not happy with the way this decision had been made. At least their faces all darkened suitably as Agnar read the list of people provided by Astrid, in which he officially put the mark of the bloodhunt on Gudrun and any retainer proven to have aided her.

During the ensuing dinner, Cadeyrn had barely time to eat, as many people living in the castle came up to him to marvel at his revival. He excused himself by reason of exhaustion after desert was served and Agnar, who’d been too busy throwing the congregation together today, wished that he could have talked to him at all after the council to gauge what he really thought of his new position. His unfaltering reason was one of the things he had always admired about Cadeyrn, but to be downgraded from consort of the king to a position that used to be reserved for night-time playthings had to sting.

At least Sigsteinn came into his chambers late that night, dressed in leather breeches soft with age and a knee-length woollen shirt as usual, his long curls falling open over his shoulders. His brows were still drawn together over his sea-blue eyes, but he gave Agnar a half-hearted smile. Agnar angled his head up to kiss his tall lover.

“Sorry for that show at the council,” Sigsteinn said.

“I can’t really expect anything else when everybody brings up how we need to kneel before your father, right?”

Sigsteinn grimaced and fell down on the bed and Agnar sat down by his side. Thanks to their long friendship, Agnar knew how much Sigsteinn had always disliked being defined by his family’s influence. From his wild, rebellious youth to his busy adulthood, in which he’d tried to prove his worth outside their reach, the effort to be separate from them, and his father most of all, was constant. Yet despite it, a member of House Ironwill he remained.

“Yes, it feels great. It’s the same level of pride I might feel if I’d run into some knight’s house and demanded to be given his husband’s hand in marriage or my papa will burn down all he owns.” He glanced sideways at Agnar. “I realise you’re not quite so passive a character in our story. You know what I mean. I want to be your husband, but I don’t want it to be the old man’s doing.”

Agnar had to laugh. “I think you made it quite clear you weren’t happy to call on your father, at least. And it’s not just for him that I want to stay married to you, you know?”

He just wished he could somehow have remained Cadeyrn’s husband, too.

“I know. I think Cadeyrn got the wrong idea about my protests, though. I’ll need to talk to him before he swallows it forever and keeps it somewhere in the recesses of that vault he calls his mind.” Sigsteinn ran one long-fingered hand through his hair. “Any tips?”

With a snort, Agnar nudged him gently in the shoulder.

“Just be honest with him. Cadeyrn will listen. People just get intimidated before they talk to him, that’s the whole problem.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve always known to wrap that man around your finger like nobody else.” Sigsteinn smiled broadly, in the way that had started to make the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle in the last couple of years, but only left him looking even more attractive, in Agnar’s opinion. “Must be your natural charm. I will give it a try, though.”

“Good.”

Agnar tugged Sigsteinn’s hand towards him. They sat in silence for a moment. After the last one and a half days, it felt right to have such a moment with his husband. However, there was one truth he still needed to get out there.

“I do still love him,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Sigsteinn answered, looking over at him. “It’s not like you parted in a fight. There isn’t a reason for you not to.”

“I love you, too.”

“I know that as well,” Sigsteinn said, managing to summon a smirk, even if it looked a little strained. The expression softened as Agnar leaned in for a kiss.

“You’re a good friend,” Agnar said as they parted.

Sigsteinn boxed him on the arm. “I’d hope I’m more than that to you!”

“You’d still be a good husband if you were a little less understanding about all this,” Agnar said, chuckling. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Sigsteinn kissed him again. “I guess you’re lucky.”

Agnar tucked him closer, pulling Sigsteinn’s head on his shoulder.

“I guess I am.”


	4. Chapter 4

When Sigsteinn asked the servants for Cadeyrn the next morning, they directed him to the courtyard. He should have known to look there himself because back in the day, that was where Cadeyrn had spent most daylight hours, just as seriously engaged when he was drilling the castle guards or teaching a young lady her parries as he was down on his knee to show some courtier’s toddler how to hold a wooden sword without dropping it in the sand. The children and young men and women had respected him and the castle guard, who hadn’t really ever had more than a few lieutenants too keep order before or after him, had called Cadeyrn their captain.

Most knaves still knew him and Sigsteinn saw with one glance that they were trying to show off for their teacher, the way they whirled across the training yard and attacked wooden posts with wooden swords as if they fought for their life and country. The youngest boys and girls, instead, were distracted. They’d only ever heard of Cadeyrn, Sigsteinn would guess, 

“Solveig is going to be relieved she doesn’t have to deal with the noble brats anymore. We never really found anyone who was so willing to bother with the knaves.”

“I can see that being true. I do wonder how glad the guard is that I am back, though,” Cadeyrn said with that flat tone that Sigsteinn had learned to read as a joke. “There will be less afternoons spent throwing dice now.”

Sigsteinn grinned. “There’ll be complaining, but it wasn’t the same without Lord Captain Cadeyrn.”

They were good men and women most and always had been, but being led by a lord who then became the king’s husband, and who had turned his attention on them without even being asked to, had given them a confidence that Sigsteinn hadn’t seen there otherwise. They’d felt more like a kingsguard with him here, a pride Cadeyrn’s solemn approach to his position had instilled in them.

“Do you have a knave here whose training you want to discuss?” Cadeyrn asked.

“No,” Sigsteinn said, looking out over the fighting children and youths. “I wanted to apologise. I admit I’m not willing to give up my marriage to Agnar so easily, but I’m not saying you have no claim on him.”

Again that unreadable gaze, but at least Cadeyrn nodded his head. Sigsteinn decided to push on.

“I certainly didn’t plan to use my family’s influence and riches to have you pushed down to the position of concubine, either.”

“I’m aware.”

“It just doesn’t make a difference?” Sigsteinn guessed.

Because in the end, for all his griping about his father, it really didn’t; Sigsteinn was well aware of that.

“No, it does,” Cadeyrn said. “Before I knew you two, when all I had heard of the royal court were names and gossip, I figured you were a pampered lordling who had been appointed marshal to appease your family so the new king could count on their support.”

Sigsteinn almost winced. He had always feared that many smaller lords and ladies all across the country, not to mention the commoners, thought the same. Hopefully, years of proving his mettle had changed some minds.

“If you had been, you’d probably have cost many people their lives over the years,” Cadeyrn continued. “To me, it always made a difference that you strove to be a real knight and leader of men even though you needn’t have.”

“Thank you. I still don’t know whether, deep down, you want to put my skills to test in a duel for Agnar’s hand, though.”

“Agnar would not forgive me.”

“That’s not a ‘no’.”

Cadeyrn only gave a pale smile and directed his gaze back at his students. Sigsteinn snorted, unable to hide a smile. _Bastard._

“You always had that quick tongue,” Cadeyrn mused, when Sigsteinn was already sure he wouldn’t answer at all. “I envy that. You have such an easy time speaking to Agnar.”

Sigsteinn found himself looking at Cadeyrn in confusion. Before he could think of an answer, Cadeyrn continued, still not looking at him: “Thank you for taking care of him when I was gone. If he had still spent his days grieving me now, after so much time has passed, that would have worried me more than anything I found when I returned.” He lifted his head. “Rafe! You hold the sword like it’s a walking stick! Have you forgotten everything I’ve taught you?!”

And with those words he gave Sigsteinn a curt nod and walked off to show a young man how to grip his wooden practice weapon, leaving Sigsteinn to stare after him. He did not feel much smarter than he had before this conversation as to what Cadeyrn thought of his new status, but as so often in the past, he was left endlessly curious. Sometimes, he had even wondered what it would be like to wriggle his fingers into the gaps in his armour; how it would feel if Cadeyrn smiled at him the way he sometimes smiled at Agnar – and only Agnar –, or to hear the same words that Cadeyrn whispered when he got on his toes to speak in Agnar’s ear.

 _He’s not your nut to crack, and with his stone shell, that’s a good thing_ , he’d always reminded himself, and did so again.

-

Over the next days, Sigsteinn tried to get comfortable with how little in his life had changed through Cadeyrn’s return. He had seamlessly picked up his old duties in the castle, which Sigsteinn noticed every time he crossed the yard, where Cadeyrn spent most of his time in sunlight or rain. When dinner was served, he sat at the table closest to the dais with the councillors and most important courtiers. Agnar had insisted that he have a seat on the council, since with Sigsteinn’s double role, there was an empty space, anyway, and so he would weigh in on discussions there at times, but mostly listened in brooding silence. Other than that, however, he somehow managed to escape Sigsteinn’s notice entirely.

“Are you and Cadeyrn hiding from me?” Sigsteinn asked Agnar one evening. “You don’t have to.”

“I’m not. I think Cadeyrn is hiding from _us_ ,” Agnar answered and though Sigsteinn knew that he was trying to be funny, he heard the deep concern in his voice.

“Pull him out of his hole by the ear,” Sigsteinn suggested.

Agnar gave a lopsided smile. “I don’t want to press him too hard. He doesn’t seem much worse for the wear for his imprisonment, but it was two and a half years he spent standing on enemy ground. Maybe he needs some time to adjust and – who knows how he feels about me, really. He had a lot of time to think and he only just met me again.”

The concern was not wholly unreasonable, though after his conversation with Cadeyrn, Sigsteinn doubted his affection for Agnar had waned. When he saw Agnar worrying like this, Sigsteinn found himself secretly glad that Cadeyrn did not challenge his own place, and at the same time tempted to drag him to into Agnar’s chambers himself. _Am I to usher my husband’s concubine into his bed? That’s madness. I should just thank the gods things have turned out as they did._ And yet, he never could feel content, seeing Agnar watch Cadeyrn despondently from atop the dais, and noticing how Cadeyrn stood straight as a lance whenever Agnar and Sigsteinn approached, his hands clasped behind him, his gaze steely and his face blank. Somehow, Sigsteinn doubted that anyone here was truly happy.

Distraction came by way of Astrid. It seemed that Gudrun had not managed to flee as fast as she should have, perhaps preparing to take some riches or retainers, and there was a trail now leading into the nearby farmlands.

Agnar was on his feet before she had stopped speaking and Sigsteinn followed suit. Cadeyrn, who had been called to attend this meeting as well as per Astrid’s request, hadn’t even sat down.

“I will go personally. Sigsteinn?” Agnar asked.

He nodded his head. “I will be with you.”

Cadeyrn opened his mouth and closed it. Sigsteinn could all but feel the desire to go on the bloodhunt radiating from him, but by the way his hand fisted into the fabric over his stomach, he understood he could not. Agnar, too, saw him and reached out to touch his arm.

“You rest here and take care of our child,” he said with a reassuring smile. “You already killed Yngvar, so you must leave us some prey as well.”

The nod Cadeyrn gave seemed to cost him great strength for each inch his muscles moved, but he managed it.

“Be careful, both of you. She is a woman of great cunning and she may already know she is being followed.”

“Of course,” Sigsteinn said. “We will take the best knights in the castle.”

-

In the end, Sigsteinn thought, as he wrapped a loop of coarse ropes around the hands of a soldier in piecemeal leather armour, his foot in the man’s back, they could have gone with a handful of knaves and properly have done just as well. He wiped sweat off his brow and turned to Agnar, who still had Sir Kjeld at swordpoint against the trunk of an old tree at the edge of the copse where they had caught up with the group. He was the highest-ranking retainer of Gudrun’s they had captured, among a gaggle of elderly castle guards and frightened servants. It was a very odd group to be taking anywhere and Sigsteinn felt annoyance rise already. This was a trick, and likely as not Gudrun had sauntered off to a port in the other direction while they chased her decoy.

“She’s not hiding in disguise,” he told Agnar as he stepped up to him, leaning the spear he carried against his own shoulder. “We checked them all.”

“She has to be somewhere. Perhaps you can enlighten us,” Agnar said with an ugly smile, his sword pressing harder against Kjeld’s throat. “It’s not the way of noble lords and ladies to creep in shadows so they don’t have to face their enemies.”

“She is facing her enemies!” Kjeld burst out, and from his expression, Sigsteinn could tell he probably hadn’t meant to, but men did unwise things with a blade two inches from ending their life.

Sigsteinn frowned at Agnar, who shrugged his shoulders. Was Kjeld ready to save his own life in exchange for hers? It was worth trying to pressure him.

“Explain,” Agnar said curtly.

Kjeld only chewed his own tongue, but, turning the words in his head, and considering his guilty expression, Sigsteinn realised with sudden clarity what he’d meant. He swore.

“What?” Agnar asked, startled.

“She’s not here. You’re not her most important enemy. You’re not the man who killed her lover.”

The colour drained from Agnar’s face.

“He’s well-protected, but we should get back to the castle _now_ ,” Sigsteinn added.

Agnar raised his foot and Sigsteinn expected him to kick Kjeld in the jar, but he just stomped it down hard on his leg instead, reconsidering at the last second. As Kjeld still groaned with pain Agnar whistled, getting the attention of two knights. The women hurried over.

“Pack him up,” he told them. “You don’t get an easy death here, Kjeld. I will judge you on the town square in Ravensdale, and you will die among the jeers and insults of the crowd as the traitor you are.”

Though Kjeld’s face showed naked fear for the first time, Sigsteinn sadly had no time to appreciate it. He ran for their horses.

-

The knights stayed behind to secure Gudrun’s people as Agnar and Sigsteinn rushed their hoses down the unpaved country roads, dirt and grass flying under the animal’s hooves. Once they had passed the city walls, however, the press of bodies slowed them down to a trot. Agnar wound in his saddle like he contemplated abandoning his horse and sprinting, but even on foot the stray carts, throngs of people, and market stalls would have slowed them just as much.

At the castle gate, a guardswoman was almost trampled by Sigsteinn’s horse as she came to a halt inches before it, running to greet them.

“Your Highness! Lord General Sigsteinn! Did the messenger find you?”

“Messenger?” Agnar echoed, dread in his voice.

“Lord Captain Cadeyrn is being held hostage by Lady Gudrun in his tower chambers. She demanded to speak to you. We haven’t been able to get at Lord Captain Cadeyrn without risking his life – she brought Constructs.”

Sigsteinn clambered off his horse just as Agnar did, his mind racing. If Gudrun had managed to enter the castle, he’d have expected her to kill Cadeyrn immediately. Was she trying to turn things around now, make demands? She had to know what a precarious position she had put herself in. And where would Gudrun get Constructs, magic guardians made of dead matter? Why would she have hidden she was a mage all those years? She could have hardly started planning this coup at three years old.

“She wants to see me? I’m here,” Agnar said in a low growl. “We’ll go. In the meantime, you find me all the guards you can to wait in the stairwell behind us.”

Agnar and Sigsteinn took the steps up the tower three at a time. It was a good place to hold a hostage, Sigsteinn considered. Not many points to enter Cadeyrn’s chambers but the one door to the stairwell, a needle every soldier trying to rescue him would have to thread – so how had she managed to get in?

The door was open. Solveig stood with two guards by its side, looking pale-faced as the king approached with heavy steps. Quickly, she moved to let him see.

Inside the room, Cadeyrn stood caught in what was clearly another magical hold. Three Constructs were placed around them, one right at the door, blocking the entrance with its arm. The magic warriors were made of chunks of stone and wood ripped out of the walls and furniture of the room, which consequently looked like an army had fought here already, but at least Cadeyrn seemed unharmed.

In her hands, Gudrun held a Chargestone.

“I see your court mage left you a gift, Lady Gudrun,” Agnar said, dangerously quiet.

Sigsteinn hadn’t seen a Chargestone in years, but considering the other feats that Cadeyrn had told of, it made sense that Yngvar had been a powerful enough mage to create one of these remarkable artefacts. Even people without any magical talents at all could siphon the magic saved there by a witch or wizard and wield it as their own. It seemed that Yngvar’s stone was generously filled.

“Ah, there you are,” Gudrun said, glancing briefly over at Agnar. “I wanted you to watch.”

“You must know you cannot leave here alive if you kill Cadeyrn and my heir,” Agnar said. “Let us talk.”

“No, let’s not. You see, I’ve made my peace with dying. Your people would have caught me eventually, anyway. Besides, I considered killing him and leaving you to find the body – that was my first plan. But I’ve pulled that trick on you before, haven’t I?” She smiled. “We are both people of the gods. I know they will put my soul in another body and then I can find Yngvar again. This, however, is important to me in this life.”

And before Agnar had a chance to respond, she waved the hand holding the stone and Cadeyrn flew backwards into the opposing wall as if the invisible fist of a giant had slammed him into the bricks.

People had always underestimated how nimble Sigsteinn could be for a man his size, and so they often forgot to defend against him accordingly. As Agnar rammed the pommel of his sword down on the Construct’s arm, giving a wordless roar of rage, Sigsteinn instead dove downwards, between the Construct’s feet. One hit him hard in the shoulder, but he rolled over his other and into the room. He’d seen at once that, while Cadeyrn was dazed from the blow, Gudrun had relinquished control of him in that moment, as his body moved freely, and so she could no longer crack his neck with little extra effort.

Gudrun lifted the hand with the stone again, pointing it at Cadeyrn, but Sigsteinn dove at her, knocking her sideways. Whatever magic had been meant to bear down on Cadeyrn made a table in the corner of the room burst into pieces instead. Yet, her grip on the stone remained tight and now one of the other Constructs moved to grab Sigsteinn as she jumped out of the way. Sigsteinn dodged one blow of a stone fist and wanted to do the same again when his foot caught on a piece of debris and he fell.

The Construct would have hit him and probably shattered every bone in his face, but that was when Cadeyrn broke a chair over the Construct’s arm, diverting the blow to slam into the stone ground instead. As the arm flew up again, the back of its stone hand swiped Cadeyrn in the face, a hard edge leaving a deep, bloody cut across it. Cadeyrn staggered backwards.

Sigsteinn jumped to his feet. The second Construct was coming closer now and he tore his shield from his back. Next to him, Cadeyrn grabbed one of the torches from the wall sconces and, dodging another blow, drove it deep into the first Construct’s body. As the flames gripped the wooden parts of its frame, it lit like dry kindling. Pieces fell off it in bursts of embers as it tottered, trying to land another, much less coordinated punch. Sigsteinn, blocking a blow from the other Construct, had just started to look for another torch to duplicate Cadeyrn’s trick when suddenly, his opponent stopped dead in its tracks. Behind him sounded a string of profanities.

Sigsteinn turned and saw that Agnar had grabbed Gudrun and wound the Chargestone out of her hand. The Construct at the door had not held out against his continued attack, especially not while Gudrun was focused on Cadeyrn and Sigsteinn. Broken parts of wood laid on the ground where Agnar had hacked through its arm.

“Take her away to the dungeons,” Agnar said breathlessly to the guards that came pouring through the door after him. He handed the struggling Gudrun to them. “Put her in chains. I will get to this in a moment.”

“And someone fetch water!” Cadeyrn called to the guards outside. “Before this damned tower catches on fire!”

Sigsteinn took up that call, unable to stand still with his blood still boiling. As he’d hoped, he found a full bucket in the adjacent washroom, which he carried back to pour over the smouldering Construct and tame its flames. It hissed under the stream of water, spitting black smoke.

Cadeyrn had sat down on the only chair remaining whole and upright in the room. Blood poured from his nose and the cut bled profusely as well. Agnar just turned away from Solveig to look the two of them over again.

“Are you alright?”

“A few bruises.” Sigsteinn rubbed his elbow, which still smarted from the kick. “Cadeyrn?”

“I hope so,” Cadeyrn said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. The smears of blood on his face made him look like a barbarian warrior of old. “I may have some sprained bones. I just hope the child did not feel too much of this. Luckily, the force she used on me pulled me backwards rather than punching me in the stomach.”

“Blood and thunder,” Agnar murmured, stepping towards him, brushing his fingers against his forehead. “I hope this nightmare is over now. How did she even get in?”

“Through the window,” Cadeyrn said. “She levitated. She must have found out where my room was and it seems Yngvar showed her some stunts to pull off with the Chargestone.” Cadeyrn turned his head to spit blood that dripped into his mouth while he spoke. “It’s the same way I got into this castle when I returned. I swear, I am going to have the whole castle guard sit down and force them to look at the sky for a week.” 

“Good,” Agnar murmured. “I want to send both of you to Elva. Can you make it there on your own? I’m going to see that our guest is safely behind lock and key or I will not sleep tonight.”

“Sure. Cadeyrn, you need help?”

“No,” Cadeyrn said immediately, as he pushed himself up by the arms of the chair.

However, whatever battle spirit had kept him standing before seemed to have waned. One of his legs bent like a broken stalk. He threw a petulant gaze at Sigsteinn, who just lifted a brow.

“ _Maybe_ ,” Cadeyrn amended.

“I’ve got him,” Sigsteinn told Agnar, crossing the distance between them to pull Cadeyrn’s arm over his shoulders and put his arm around his hips. He had to lean sideways, since Cadeyrn was much shorter than him, but at least Cadeyrn was not a heavy burden even with the child.

Agnar looked between them with a frown, but gave a reluctant nod of his head. “I will be right with you.”

-

“Feel free to rest here as long as you like.”

Elva, the court healer, placed a bowl of water down next to her cluttered table. It had a pinkish tinge from where Cadeyrn had washed off his blood. A thin red line remained on his cheek where the stone had cut his skin.

“Thank you,” Cadeyrn said.

He looked exhausted to the bone and Sigsteinn wondered how much she really had had to mend. Cadeyrn probably hadn’t wanted to worry Agnar.

Sigsteinn himself felt the lead tiredness of healing spells going through him as well. Still he summoned a smile. “We won’t bother you for long, Elva. We’ll just wait for the king.”

“Of course,” she said, nodding at them, before she turned back into her study.

Cadeyrn sat down by his side, glancing at the bundles of drying herbs and strings of small animal bones hanging from the ceiling.

“Looks like a new scar,” Sigsteinn said after a long moment.

“Just a small one.”

“You wouldn’t have it if I hadn’t stumbled over my feet like a young colt.”

“But if you hadn’t charged into the room, I’d likely be dead,” Cadeyrn answered with a shrug.

“Sounds like we’re putting blame at Gudrun’s feet, then,” Sigsteinn answered. “I have no quarrel with that.” He glanced at the closed door of the study. “What did Elva say about the kid?”

“It seems to be healthy.” Cadeyrn breathed in deeply. “I know it’s unreasonable to be so attached when it is not yet born. Still, choice or not, we have spent much more time together than most parent and child do before birth.” A bit of sarcasm had bled into his voice, but it vanished again as he continued: “Besides, it’ll likely be my only child.”

“Why is that?” Sigsteinn asked.

Maybe it was an unnecessary question. To say that Cadeyrn’s pregnancy had been traumatic – if for reasons that didn’t have so much to do with the pregnancy itself – was an understatement.

However, the look Cadeyrn sent him was too withering for that explanation. “Is it not clear? I’m not Agnar’s husband anymore.”

“Well – wait. You are the one who has spent the last week dodging us,” Sigsteinn gave back. “Maybe for reasons of decorum we can’t both be consorts, but I never said you couldn’t be his lover.”

Cadeyrn tsked and shook his head. “We both know you match my husband better. I don’t want to be in this losing struggle when the one I’ll hurt most by dragging it out is Agnar.”

“Do you really care so little about him that you won’t even try to fight for him?” Sigsteinn exclaimed, his temper stoked by the memory of the worried looks he’d seen Agnar cast at Cadeyrn all week.

He’d expected another flat answer from Cadeyrn, maybe nothing more than an unimpressed gaze. Instead, Cadeyrn grabbed the front of his tunic with both hands and yanked Sigsteinn so close there was barely an inch between them.

“You will _never_ accuse me of that again if you don’t want me to draw my sword for a duel, after all,” he growled.

Sigsteinn was stunned into silence. He’d seen that Cadeyrn had a fire in him before, but only on the battlefield or the training yard. All that pertained to Agnar he kept close to his chest. The way he stared at Sigsteinn now, though, Sigsteinn felt suddenly much lighter. Cadeyrn was caught up in his own web of insecurities or ill judgements, but he was as steadfast in his feelings as Sigsteinn had always believed him to be and Agnar needed not mourn their love.

With this mix of relief, anger, amusement, sudden affection for this difficult man, Sigsteinn leaned forward and placed a kiss on his lips.

Cadeyrn pressed his mouth against Sigsteinn’s, hard and demanding, and Sigsteinn responded in kind.

The door creaked. They flew apart, Cadeyrn dropping his hands into his lap.

Agnar stepped into the room and took a long look at them. His shoulders sank. “I see you’re patched up.”

Both Cadeyrn and Sigsteinn nodded like unruly children with the evidence of their mischief still hidden behind their backs. Sigsteinn saw his own bewilderment mirrored briefly on Cadeyrn’s face before he clamped down on it.


	5. Chapter 5

“Gods, it’s finally over.”

Sigsteinn stretched his long arms over his head, cracked his neck. To Agnar’s other side, Cadeyrn hid a yawn in the crook of his elbow.

“Just to remind you, I told _both_ of you that you needn’t have come,” Agnar said.

“And let people think Lady Gudrun tore us to pieces?” Cadeyrn asked. “Better they see us right now.”

“He’s not wrong,” Sigsteinn said. “You didn’t have to leave the feast with us, though, if you wanted to dance or talk.”

“No, I’m not in the mood, either,” Agnar admitted.

The feast had been planned for weeks, a small thanks to the gods for a spring without hail and rain that washed the seed away on the fields or hammered the young shoots. Coincidentally, it had also been a good chance to show everyone that the attack, of which news had naturally spread like wildfire, had been decisively struck down by the three of them, leaving them no worse for the wear. He’d have preferred to see them both get a day of rest, though.

At least he got to see Sigsteinn and Cadeyrn dressed up, Agnar considered. Sigsteinn was clad in a red silk tunic with golden trimmings, belted at the hip, matched with tight black trousers. He wore a few choice rings and a necklace with the swirling sign of the pantheon, and his gold crown in his golden hair, radiant as ever. Next to him, Cadeyrn was in the heavier robes of the old style that he preferred, a long, dark green garment of wool with a black cape draped over it, the only ornament a broche of pale diamond laid in silver that Agnar had gifted him for a birthday.

They crossed the courtyard together. They’d separate again soon, Cadeyrn walking the steps of the tower to the new guest room assigned to him while the old one was being put back together by busy carpenters, and Sigsteinn and Agnar heading towards their chambers. Sometimes, despite all the awkwardness it would create, and though he did not want to hurt Sigsteinn, a small, selfish part of him wished Cadeyrn would ask him to come sleep by his side just once, the way he always had during their marriage. It had amused him then how Cadeyrn had ostensibly insisted on separate bedrooms, but then had still shared a bed with Agnar every night.

“Cadeyrn?”

Lost in thought as he was, Agnar had not seen that Cadeyrn had fallen behind. He stopped, looking over his shoulder. It didn’t surprise Agnar that Sigsteinn had noticed first. No one could have blamed them for being uncomfortable around each other, but that careful air had, in fact, dissipated. Instead, Agnar found they had been watching each other from the corners of their eyes all evening long.

“Yes, I’m coming,” Cadeyrn said.

He took a deep breath and tugged at his cloak like he was pulling himself up by his own clothes. Agnar could see that even though they had slowed their walk, he had trouble catching up.

It was not the first time he had noted Cadeyrn lagging during an activity, losing track in a conversation, or sitting listless and quiet over some business at the council or his food at dinner, but he’d not thought of much of it. Of course a lot would be on his mind these days. The fact that he could not speed up now though he was obviously trying set Agnar’s heart thumping again, though.

“Are you alright?” he asked, coming to a halt.

“I’m not sick,” Cadeyrn said.

“Not an answer,” Sigsteinn pointed out.

Cadeyrn raised a brow at him, but did not protest. He shook his head as if he was dazed.

“I will call Elva just to have a look,” Agnar said, already turning on his heel.

“No, let her celebrate,” Cadeyrn said gruffly, waving his hand. “There’s nothing she can do. I need to sleep, that’s all. It... has been troublesome lately.”

“Why is that?” Agnar asked.

There was a pause, but Agnar did not think to break it. Sigsteinn, too, just kept an expectant gaze on Cadeyrn.

“Lately, I do not like it anymore,” Cadeyrn answered, avoiding their eyes. “Sometimes, I open my eyes and I cannot move, so I’m lying alone in my bedchamber, stiff like a corpse, and look endlessly into the dark. It must be some sort of dream, but it keeps returning. Or I lie on a limb and it will be numb and motionless when I wake...”

Agnar needed no explanation as to why those things would cause Cadeyrn sleepless nights. He’d done an admirable job so far pretending that he was fine, but naturally the long, cruel captivity had left furrows in his soul. Judging by Sigsteinn’s unhappy frown, he had come to the same conclusion.

“Then you should sleep by Agnar’s side. It would be better than struggling against nightmares alone,” Sigsteinn said.

“Should I? Where’s _your_ fight now?”

Sigsteinn snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Shut up,” he said, but it sounded conciliatory. Agnar was about to ask what that odd conversation was about when Cadeyrn interrupted.

“I’d feel like a child if I asked Agnar to leave his husband’s bed to coddle me.”

“Then why don’t you join both of us?”

It was a bold suggestion, but Agnar had a feeling they’d be discussing this until the sun came up if he did not make it. If there was a common trait between his two lovers, disparate as they were otherwise, then next to their talent with the sword it was likely their stubbornness.

“You should do it for the child, if for no other reason. The pregnancy has been troubled enough already,” Sigsteinn said, to Agnar’s happy surprise.

“You make sense,” Cadeyrn admitted.

And so they did not part this time and Agnar’s heart beat in his throat.

Since Cadeyrn had no sleeping clothes with him, Sigsteinn gave him one of his own tunics, which reached far beyond Cadeyrn’s knees, but would do well for a night. Agnar laid down first and Sigsteinn and Cadeyrn climbed into the broad bed after him, drawing the heavy curtains around it.

After a little shifting, Sigsteinn decided for the position he’d so often taken since they had started sleeping together, with his head on Agnar’s shoulder. Cadeyrn, for his part, took only Agnar’s hand, which he clutched tight between his fingers. Agnar felt a pang of guilt that he had not done as Sigsteinn had told him to and pushed a little bit more into Cadeyrn. Did he really know his own husband so little? Perhaps he had gotten too used to Sigsteinn’s more open nature. You would never miss if he was angry or displeased or sad. If he was to have two men, Agnar resolved that he needed to approach each of them on their own level. 

Gently, Agnar ran his thumb over Cadeyrn’s wrist until his grip eased. His other hand was buried in Sigsteinn’s hair and in the twilight, he saw him smile up at him as he pulled him closer. Despite everything, this was the closest to happy Agnar had been in a long while.

Of course, Cadeyrn had indicated that sleeping next to him was not going to be quite so easy. Agnar had barely dozed off by the first time that Cadeyrn startled awake. Agnar let him continue to squeeze his hand, didn’t speak. However, by the third time he felt Cadeyrn wince and shudder by his side, he reminded himself of the note he had just made in his mind about his husbands. Gently, he unwound his fingers from Cadeyrn’s and pushed his hand under his shoulders instead, pulling him closer so that his position matched Sigsteinn’s, if with a little more distance thanks to his large stomach.

“Is this better?” he asked.

“Yes,” Cadeyrn says quietly.

“For how much he likes to stomp around himself sometimes, Agnar can calm people down. It’s a good trait for a king,” Sigsteinn murmured quietly.

Cadeyrn gave one voiceless huff of a laugh.

“Indeed, but now I’m liable to keep two people awake.”

“An excuse to sleep longer in the morning,” Sigsteinn muttered, turning his face into Agnar’s chest.

And after Agnar had brought Cadeyrn closer, he only woke a couple more times until the sun winked through the gaps in the curtains.

-

Sigsteinn did not make use of his own excuse, as he had to get up to meet with a delegation of noble knights in the morning, leaving Agnar and Cadeyrn in bed together. Agnar, too, would have tended to business if Cadeyrn had not fallen asleep on him again after Sigsteinn had left. He told himself that ensuring the health of Cadeyrn and his precious cargo was a duty for the king, too.

When Agnar opened his eyes again an hour or so later, Cadeyrn laid still on his chest and watched him. He lifted his head and Agnar pecked him on the mouth, enjoying the feel of his soft, full lips. It was their first kiss since Cadeyrn was back. He had missed it.

“Slept better tonight?”

“Yes. You two were right to insist,” Cadeyrn admitted. “It’s much more difficult to lose yourself in memories with two living, breathing bodies right in reach.” He cocked his head. “And I have good memories of being in your bed.”

There was just a slight hint of an innuendo there, almost hidden by Cadeyrn’s stern face. Agnar had to grin.

“That makes two of us.”

After another kiss, Cadeyrn sat up on the side of the bed.

“I wonder. Do you sometimes wish you had married Sigsteinn from the start? It would make things much easier now.”

“No,” Agnar said honestly. “There is no way to say this in a way that is just to either of you, but I do love both of you, and each marriage was what I wanted at that time.”

Cadeyrn slipped Sigsteinn’s tunic over his head and picked up his own robes again. Agnar watched the muscle move under his deathly pale skin.

“I am glad you don’t regret our marriage, in any case.”

“How could I?” Agnar smiled playfully, trying to pull Cadeyrn away from his gloomy thoughts. “I put in a lot of work to even make you pay attention to me. It’s not often a king has to do that, so you taught me a well-needed lesson in humility.”

“I think the greatest obstacle you had to overcome was that I was blind to the idea that you were courting me,” Cadeyrn said and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips as he turned to him. “I remember thinking often that you certainly put a lot of focus on one retainer who does nothing more important at your court than chase the children around to earn a little gold to put back into his lands. What an odd king I thought you were. I simply couldn’t find an explanation.”

Agnar had to laugh. “That’s why I had to kiss you after summer solstice, right in the middle of your sentence. I could have gladly listened to you for hours, but I was worried that was all I was going to do for the next few months if I didn’t act quickly.”

Cadeyrn’s smile widened, but a flicker of contemplation came over his face.

“Speaking of kissing,” he said, letting the sentence linger.

“Yes?” Agnar asked.

“I kissed Sigsteinn,” Cadeyrn said matter-of-factly. “Or he kissed me. It’s a bit of a blur. I think both is true.” He sorted through his robes. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t think Sigsteinn knows, either. I thought you should know, though. Perhaps he already told you.”

Agnar needed a moment to find any words at all.

“No, it’s news to me, but – I’d rather that than that you’re fighting.”

In fact, looking inwards, there was shock, but no thread of jealousy he could pull. They had slept in bed with him tonight, their legs tangling, their hands ending up on each other when they slipped too far over Agnar’s chest in their sleep. In some vague, wordless way he had liked that image and not because he fancied himself some monarch of old with his harem solely devoted to him strewn about his mattress.

“It does seem like a better alternative, doesn’t it? Though we _were_ fighting at the time...” Cadeyrn shrugged. “It stopped that, at least.” He glanced at the window. “I should get some fresh clothes and go meet the knaves now.”

-

While Agnar was not angry about what had happened, he had a burning desire to hear Sigsteinn’s take on it and all day he found himself distracted by the news as he poured over his correspondence. As soon as a servant told him that his husband had returned from his duties, he knocked at his door.

Sigsteinn was still in the process of pulling pieces off his armour off. He kissed Agnar in a greeting.

“How did it go?”

“Nothing too exciting, which is a good thing. The raiders still keep clear of our coasts and Skelbeck is quiet. Everybody is vying for promises that I’ll let them lead troops and find glory in whatever fight comes next. The usual. I’ll give the full account at the council on Midweek.”

“Very good.”

Agnar perched on the edge of his bed.

“So what do you’ve got to tell me? You have that look in your eyes,” Sigsteinn said, kicking out of his boots.

Agnar chuckled. “You know me too well. It’s about something Cadeyrn told me. He said you got – closer.”

Sigsteinn stopped in his tracks, glancing over at Agnar and searching his face.

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to tell you that, too. Just couldn’t really find a good start to ‘what if I told you I kissed your other husband’.” He frowned. “Sometimes, I think it’d help to be as blunt as Cadeyrn! Will keep his mouth shut until the end of the earth most of the time, but if he wants to say something, he never dances around it, does he?”

Smiling, Agnar nodded his head. “It’s a talent of his.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No. I have kissed Cadeyrn and I have kissed you. It would not be just of me to tell you not to kiss each other.”

“Yet feelings can be unjust and still true,” Sigsteinn pointed out.

“You’re not wrong, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m just curious what made you do it. Cadeyrn didn’t have an answer.”

“That makes two of us. I think... I don’t know. We were barking at each other at that point like angry dogs. I told him he made it look like he didn’t love you, the way he acted, and he flipped like I’d kicked the graves of his family. In that moment, I really liked him for that. I mean, I never disliked him at all, but that passion... it’s a lot to have all on you and not do something with.”

“I have been there,” Agnar said with a quick nod, even as his heart swelled when Sigsteinn told him what the fight had been about.

“What can I say? Perhaps I just think you have good taste in men.” He raised his brows. “I have no idea what goes on in Cadeyrn’s head, as usual. He seemed to like the kiss, at least.”

“I imagine he would. You are a good kisser.”

And Agnar pulled Sigsteinn close, just to underline that this was not an interrogation. In truth, something in his chest felt lighter, even if this was another new turn in an already difficult maze. They would have to take this one day at a time, but each was one day that two of the greatest men he had ever known were still at his side and so Agnar could only thank the gods.

-

“The Stormeagles have always been like this,” Cadeyrn said, shrugging his shoulders. “My family was under their banner. No matter how unsuited their offspring, they wanted them all at the head of battle. Brave and foolish. It has cost them quite a few promising souls over the years – those whose talents laid in writing, mathematics, and proper worshipping of the gods, yet who were sent to die with a sword they could barely hold.”

“Then I’ll have to find a way to pick out the ones that aren’t liable to lead my knights into a ditch. You wouldn’t still know some of them?”

Sigsteinn laid with his head on Agnar’s shoulder again, but none of them were as tired as last night, and so an aside from Sigsteinn about his continued meetings with the major knights of the kingdom had spun into an idle conversation, with the bed’s curtains still open to let in the light of a candle burning on the night stand. Agnar’s head leaned against Cadeyrn’s hip, as Cadeyrn was sitting against the pillows, while Sigsteinn’s hand drew circles over Agnar’s chest. Without a word spoken about it, they had all met again in Agnar’s bed tonight.

“Give me a list of names. I will mark the ones I know to be able,” Cadeyrn said.

“Thanks.”

“Sigsteinn, I hate to say it, but I’m glad you get to deal with these people. I’m already tired after stroking the egos of courtiers, I don’t need offended would-be generals.”

“Thank you for your great help, too,” Sigsteinn drawled, pinching his nipple as Agnar grinned.

“That is why I prefer children. One does not expect them to be reasonable, so one is not disappointed,” Cadeyrn said flatly.

This made both Sigsteinn and Agnar laugh.

“Maybe that’s how we should approach the courtiers,” Agnar mused, enjoying the feeling of Sigsteinn’s calloused fingers brushing against his skin, gaze straying to look at Cadeyrn’s muscular thigh, naked by the side of his head since his tunic had slid up to his stomach.

Sigsteinn made a small, bemused noise of surprise, a warm huff of breath against Agnar’s skin. Agnar turned to look at him.

“What?”

“Hopefully, that’s not you thinking about courtiers,” Sigsteinn said, nodding downwards.

Agnar followed his gaze and found his head grow hot like that of half-grown youth when he realised that the blanket had risen over his groin.

“Only the courtiers in my bed,” he admitted, gently pushing Sigsteinn off of himself to sit up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to the washing room and you can pretend I’m scrubbing my face in there...”

“You have two men in your bed and you will go to the washing room with that?” Cadeyrn asked.

There was that bluntness again. Sigsteinn and Agnar both stared up at him.

“He’s got a point, you know,” Sigsteinn said, more carefully, but with anticipation clear in his voice.

Agnar hesitated. He’d missed Cadeyrn’s body on his for too long and Sigsteinn and him hadn’t slept together since Cadeyrn’s return, either, their minds too occupied otherwise. Agnar would not lie that he wanted his husbands.

“I don’t want to treat you like the wild kings and queens of my family’s distant past treated their harems,” he said uncertainly.

“You already don’t, but fine. In that case, you must decide: which one of us stays to help, and which one of us should leave?” Cadeyrn answered.

Sigsteinn snorted. Agnar scowled.

“That’s not fair.”

Cadeyrn shrugged his shoulders, still all pretend calm. “If you rather want to go to the washing room, we will not stop you, either.”

But Cadeyrn knew he did not. Of course Agnar wanted them both, he just did not want to hurt them both. However, before he could fret more, Sigsteinn leaned forward to kiss him deeply, in the way they hadn’t kissed for a fortnight now, his hand caressing his chest and slipping lower. With his flimsy resolve thoroughly shattered, Agnar put an arm around Sigsteinn’s shoulders and reached for Cadeyrn, but Cadeyrn had moved away. Agnar felt cold air on his body as the blanket was pulled downwards alongside his breeches with one decisive movement.

Cadeyrn’s fingers ran down Agnar’s cock only for a moment before he took him in a firm grip. He’d never been as playful as Sigsteinn, but his intensity was no less alluring. As Agnar was still busy with Sigsteinn’s clever tongue, he felt Cadeyrn’s, too, sliding down his cock. His gasp ended up in Sigsteinn’s mouth.

“He wastes no time, does he?” Sigsteinn murmured, looking downwards as he licked his lips.

“Never,” Agnar said.

He dragged his knuckles over Sigsteinn’s stomach, downwards, where his cock hung heavy against the fabric of his breeches. He felt the weight of it in his palm for a moment before he pulled apart the laces and tugged the trousers away. Sigsteinn’s thick cock sat in a nest of blonde curls, raising as if to meet his hand, and Agnar circled his fingers around him. As his palm met his heated skin, Sigsteinn groaned. It seemed Agnar was not the only one who had suffered from the wait.

Sigsteinn kissed him again, greedy and open-mouthed, but not for so long this time. Like Agnar, he was distracted; his eyes strayed down to Cadeyrn, bowing deeply over Agnar’s cock, taking him in his mouth, in his throat, in short, quick movements of his head. Cadeyrn worked with as much focus as Agnar still remembered – but then, for one brief moment, he met their eyes, dropped his gaze to Agnar stroking Sigsteinn’s cock, before he concentrated again on the task at hand, and that one curious glance hit Agnar like a punch to the gut.

The _want_ that ran through Cadeyrn had always been more subtle than it showed in most men, but Agnar still saw it in his taut muscles, the way he sat as if ready to pounce. He swallowed Agnar down with abandon, like he’d dreamt of doing it. Agnar reached down, thumb rubbing circles into the thick muscle of Cadeyrn’s neck, tugging Sigsteinn’s cock more fiercely at the same time, enjoying the low noises Sigsteinn spilled into his ear as he thrust against his palm.

Agnar came into Cadeyrn’s mouth, too overwhelmed by both of them on him, over him, to hold out long. However, Sigsteinn, who watched like hypnotised as Agnar thrust up into Cadeyrn’s mouth, already followed him moments later, spilling all over Agnar’s fingers and chest.

Cadeyrn sat up, licking his lips like a cat. For a long moment, he studied Sigsteinn’s come covering Agnar’s skin, breathing fast, before he looked at them again. Agnar pulled him closer, dropped his hand down to smooth it over his stomach, and took his cock in hand, too. To his surprise, Sigsteinn’s fingers joined his on the back of Cadeyrn’s neck. Cadeyrn and Sigsteinn looked at each other for a moment, a gaze that seemed like a silent conversation Agnar could not hear, and then Sigsteinn kissed him, licking drops of Agnar’s come from his lips, and plunged his tongue into Cadeyrn’s mouth.

It looked like a fight as they kissed, nudging, nipping, but as Agnar thumbed the head of Cadeyrn’s cock and pulled down his foreskin, squeezed him harder, he yielded for just a moment, allowing his head to lean into Sigsteinn’s palm. For the quiet chuckle Sigsteinn gave in response, he bit his lower lip in retaliation. His peak distracted him sufficiently so there was not another squabble, which Agnar was almost sorry for. They looked so good locked in each other like fighting stags, but in a struggle that was obviously not meant to hurt.

It was Sigsteinn who found a spare blanket to clean the mess they had made. Cadeyrn laid down, this time claiming the spot where he could lay tight against Agnar. Sigsteinn took up position on the other side.

“It’s good to be king, isn’t it? Or do I say Lord of the Dreadfeather Clan now, like they may have called your wild ancestors?” Sigsteinn asked, grinning.

Cadeyrn gave a low chuckle in the back of his throat. Agnar knew his face was probably red, though the darkness hid that fact.

“Time to sleep, both of you,” Agnar muttered and gently elbowed Sigsteinn, who kissed his arm in response. Cadeyrn nuzzled into Agnar’s shoulder as he closed his eyes. Thankfully, like this, Agnar did not have to feel like a heartless warrior king mistreating his lovers.


	6. Chapter 6

“I will stay in bed for a while longer.”

Sigsteinn glanced sideways at Cadeyrn and then at Agnar. From anyone else, he wouldn’t have given the words a second thought, but Cadeyrn had spent every day on his feet since his return. A man who was in the courtyard fifteen hours after he had returned from a two-and-half-year captivity did not lounge in bed because he was a little bit tired.

“You will tell us if you’re sick, yes?” Agnar said. “For the little one.”

“I am really just exhausted,” Cadeyrn sounded irritated enough about the fact that Sigsteinn felt inclined to believe him. “It might be the last weeks catching up to me.”

“Stay here as long as you like, then,” Agnar said with a nod. “You made your appearance before the court after the attack, and you’re so far along that no one will bat an eye if you go missing sometimes.”

“Besides, we had a lot of exercise last night, so who could blame you?” Sigsteinn added with a smirk.

Cadeyrn just raised his white eyebrow at him. There was a shadow of a smile on his lips.

“Will you be back tonight?” Cadeyrn asked Agnar, watching him pack his satchel.

“No, unfortunately not. They smashed the fortress over the Long Pass to pieces in the war and I need it standing again as soon as possible. I have to show up to oversee construction every once in a while. I should be back in two days’ time, though.”

“Of course. The fortress wasn’t called the Watchman for nothing,” Cadeyrn answered.

The Long Pass through the mountains in the west was a craggy, hard-to-patrol area that was a favourite for knights trying to invade the country as well as brigands and robbers. It could be very useful for Lingarth’s forces as well, but without the Watchman, it was mostly an open wound at the border.

“Are you going with him?” Cadeyrn asked. “He should have a guard.”

“Don’t worry, the king isn’t traipsing around the countryside undefended. I’m sending a few of my best men and women.” Sigsteinn grimaced. “I still have my gaggle of noble knights here, so I’ll be busy with that.”

“So sad I cannot be around for that,” Agnar said blithely.

“Once more, thank you for your outpour of compassion.”

Agnar smiled before he kissed him, then leaned down to Cadeyrn and pecked him on the lips as well.

“Try to get some more sleep,” he said.

“The gods make you return safely,” Cadeyrn answered, as if he was commanding it of them, his hand lingering on Agnar’s arm for a moment.

-

“Didn’t expect that to happen last evening,” Agnar said, hauling himself up into the saddle. “Are you really alright with it?”

“Don’t you know me well enough to realise you’d have heard about by now if I weren’t?”

Sigsteinn grabbed Agnar’s knee and squeezed it. Agnar’s hand landed on his head, gloved fingers gently carding through his hair.

“You’re right. Keep an eye on the castle for me while I’m gone, consort.”

It was something Agnar liked to say in the instances that Sigsteinn did not travel with him, but Sigsteinn had a feeling that it meant a little more this time. After all, Agnar left not only the Raven’s Nest in his care, but also his first husband and heir.

“Come back in one piece.”

Agnar grinned.

“Why do you and Cadeyrn have so little faith in me?”

As he watched Agnar ride off, Sigsteinn wondered briefly if Agnar meant for him to spend the night in Cadeyrn’s bed. The idea did not bother him as much as it perhaps should have, though considering he had watched him swallow down his husband’s cock and kissed the seed from his lips, all barriers between them should be obliterated. Still, somehow it seemed more intimate to lay in each other’s arms at night.

_Perhaps I will just be at the other side of the bed._

Sigsteinn decided he would cross that bridge tonight. For now, he had lords and ladies to appease and that task, predictably, kept him busy enough not to worry about anything else. He was still making tenuously pleasant conversation with them at dinner when he saw a young servant speed along the pillars that lined the hall and then stop a few feet from the dais, nervously jumping from one foot to another.

“What is it, boy?” Sigsteinn asked, waving him closer.

“Mistress Elva sends me, my Lord General, uh, Consort,” he said, stumbling over his words, bristling with nervous energy. “Lord Cadeyrn is going to have the baby. She brought him to one of the rooms by her hut, she told me to tell you. The one under the big trees.”

Sigsteinn had figured over the day that he’d be glad for any distraction. He’d been wrong.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded at the kid.

“Well done. Go on to the stables and have a messenger sent right to the Watchman at the Long Pass to fetch the King. Tell the messenger the same thing you told me and make them take the fastest horse they have, on my order.”

The boy nodded his head rapidly and set off again. Sigsteinn imagined this was probably quite the adventure for him. Dread settled in his stomach as he rose, hearing words come out of his mouth, some excuse as to why he had to leave early, important business on the king’s behalf and all that. He marched out of the hall before anyone could protest.

Was the babe not a few weeks too early? Not certain to be sick from it, from what he could say with his limited knowledge of such matters, but not yet expected, either. Then again, it had certainly staid inside Cadeyrn for long enough now, even if suspended in its growth, and Cadeyrn getting thrown about like a bale of hay may not have helped. Sigsteinn made sure to spend all the colourful curses on his tongue before he raced into Elva’s garden. She reigned over a low, long stone building that was separated into several rooms for her patients to rest in. Sigsteinn knocked at the door on the room that was connected directly to her hut, which laid in deep shadows under the trees, only revealed by a single lantern.

“My Lord General,” Elva said, as she opened the door. “Will the king make it in time?”

Apparently Cadeyrn had already told her Agnar was not here.

“Depends on how long the birth takes. I doubt he can make it back before morning even if he rides the whole night.”

Over her shoulder, Sigsteinn saw Cadeyrn lay only in his tunic on a simple bed, clean linen spread over hay filling a wooden frame. A woman, a midwife Sigsteinn already had seen around the castle before, leaned over a table in the back of the room.

“That is too bad,” Elva murmured. “He might not be here for the birth of his child.”

“It cannot be helped,” Cadeyrn said, voice pressed.

Traditionally, the other parent was to watch the birth, but they could not magick the king here, even if Cadeyrn’s face, tight with pain and somehow paler than usual, almost grey in that, made Sigsteinn wish he could have summoned him on the spot.

Elva stepped back and Sigsteinn approached the bed carefully. As Elva and the midwife talked in quiet voices amongst themselves, he leaned towards Cadeyrn.

“Do you think you will be alright?”

“I don’t like this,” Cadeyrn bit out, shuddering, gripped by pain. “I don’t think I could get further than the door if I wanted to – or even get up.”

Captured in place once more, defenceless. It seemed to be his fate lately. Sigsteinn wanted to swear again. What could he do? He didn’t want to leave here and have Cadeyrn struggle all by himself, but he was not the other father, so he had no place in this room, and who could say if Cadeyrn even wanted him at his side? _Nothing to do but ask._

“I can’t help you bear the kid, but I’ve got a big sword and I’ll stay between you and the door if you want me to.”

Cadeyrn looked at him for a long moment and then nodded his head. Sigsteinn felt relief, though he didn’t know why. Not like he was useful for fuck-all here, but at least he could keep an eye on the situation instead of biting his nails in his chambers.

“I’m staying in lieu of the king,” he told Elva and the midwife. 

The midwife glanced at Elva, who shrugged. “It’s a unique situation,” she said politely. “I think the king would approve.”

Sigsteinn did wonder what people said about them in the castle now, considering it would not have escaped the attention of the servants that his and Cadeyrn’s beds had both been empty these last two nights. That was a question to contemplate later.

“Have a seat,” the midwife told him, “this will take a while.”

-

Seven hours later, Sigsteinn knew that the midwife was call Ingegerd and the baby was not much closer to being born, though not for lack of Cadeyrn trying. He’d successfully ripped at least half a dozen holes into the sheets that Sigsteinn could see and was gasping for air like he was drowning by this point, sweat pouring down over his forehead and neck and plastering the tunic to his body.

“I think I will get some more warm water,” Ingegerd said after another futile attempt to convince the baby to leave, raising from her position at the end of the bed. “Try to breathe, my Lord. You need to give yourself a moment to relax between pushes.”

Cadeyrn’s gaze snapped up like he was about to tell her what he thought of her suggestion, but he kept his teeth tightly clamped together.

As the door closed behind her, Cadeyrn let his head drop into the pillows he had been sitting against. He’d slid down during his efforts, almost flat on his back now.

“Why doesn’t it work?” he asked the ceiling or Sigsteinn, exhaustion mixing with anger.

“It hasn’t been that long,” Sigsteinn reminded him. “Don’t first births often take a while?”

“The midwife said I was ready to get this child out,” Cadeyrn ground out, his last word disappearing almost into a growl. He pushed himself up into the pillows again, which laid so crooked he almost immediately slid down once more. Even knowing the distance between the Watchman and the Raven’s Nest, Sigsteinn found himself ardently hoping that Agnar hurried up like all the demons of fire were on his trail. Cadeyrn could have needed some of that peace he found next to him at night.

“Maybe it would help if I left,” Sigsteinn said carefully.

He had noticed that Cadeyrn hadn’t screamed even once, had gone through this birth with all the dogged tenacity he usually showed on a battlefield. There was a hint of competition between them, after all, and then something else undefined, which might make Cadeyrn want to look brave in front of him. All in all, Sigsteinn doubted his presence was soothing.

“No,” Cadeyrn said hastily and bit his tongue when he noticed how fast the word had slipped out of his mouth. “I don’t – I’d rather you stayed.”

“Alright,” Sigsteinn said, surprised, his heart making a small leap in his ribcage.

Cadeyrn sank against the mattress, his body still one hard, tense line. He sighed. “To think I’m begging you to remain,” he murmured. “Two weeks ago, I’d have fought you to leave.”

“So you were angry at the start?” Sigsteinn asked. “You hid that pretty well.”

“Of course I was,” Cadeyrn snapped. “I told you, I always thought you would have made a better match for Agnar, and it was luck alone that put me at his side instead. A child could have seen how well you got along! When I realised you were married, I thought I was really not needed... and now I can’t even birth this child and make myself useful!”

There was the next tear in the blanket. 

“Listen, that’s bullshit. Agnar knew me for years and years before he met you and he chose you. If anything, I have a right to worry that I’m not what he really wants.”

Which he did, not as often as in the beginning, but every once in a while.

Cadeyrn scowled, but the next wave of contractions seemed to take hold of him in that moment. His body, which looked strangely small on the wide woollen blanket, curled inward like that of a dying insect. Sigsteinn had the sudden, searing wish to embrace him.

“That may be so,” Cadeyrn admitted breathlessly. A toothy grin came to his face. “I still think I am right. Or perhaps it was just always too easy for me to see why Agnar might love you?”

“And I certainly understand why he married you,” Sigsteinn admitted, stomach flipping, “even if you’re a stubborn mule.”

Cadeyrn chuckled voicelessly, turned to look at him.

“Listen, if I cannot do this, you have to convince Elva to cut me open and take out the child. I know they’ll hesitate because I’m the king’s concubine, but Agnar is not so unreasonable he’d punish the women who saved his heir. I’m not pulling my child into death with me,” he said, his steady voice laced with just a little panic.

The thought made Sigsteinn shiver. He rose from his chair, unsure even as he did what his plan was with that gesture, then leaned over Cadeyrn and kissed him on the mouth. Cadeyrn gripped his arm, his hand a vice around it.

“No one is dying tonight,” Sigsteinn said as he parted.

The door sounded before Cadeyrn could object. Ingegerd placed a wooden bowl of steaming water on the ground by the foot of the bed.

“Ingegerd,” Sigsteinn said, following a sudden idea as he watched Cadeyrn struggle with the pillows again, “can I help Cadeyrn sit up?”

She looked surprised, but nodded her head. “You can sit behind him, Lord General.”

Sigsteinn looked at Cadeyrn for confirmation. He gave a small nod, no hesitation this time.

Sigsteinn tugged off his boots and clambered onto the bed. Cadeyrn winced as Sigsteinn moved him, but he did not complain. Sigsteinn carefully made him sit so that he could lean into him, holding him up with one arm around the chest. Cadeyrn gripped his knee.

“Don’t break it,” Sigsteinn whispered into his ear.

Cadeyrn rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his face for just a moment. Maybe it was because of the pain that it looked just as unguarded as the ones he usually reserved for Agnar.

It was not smooth sailing from there, but at least Cadeyrn’s body softened a little against him between pushes now. Out of view of Ingegerd, Sigsteinn caressed his side, his arm.

“I see the head,” Ingegerd said, somehow both much too suddenly and after far too long.

From Sigsteinn’s angle, he only saw the blood that was colouring the sheet between Cadeyrn’s legs. He tried not to think about it. Everybody knew that births were warrior’s work.

“Elva!” Ingegerd called.

The door between this room and Elva’s study opened.

“I will need your assistance in a moment,” Ingegerd told her.

“Very good.”

She strode over to Ingegerd’s side. Cadeyrn was only stuttering breaths now, his chest moving convulsively under Sigsteinn’s arm, but he still pushed when Ingegerd told him to, and then she reached forward and Cadeyrn let out a small, hitched whimper. The baby came into the world covered in red and squawking.

“The afterbirth is already almost there, too,” Elva pointed out, lifting the child into her arms heedless of the grime it was covered in and leaning back to reach again.

“That’s fast,” Ingegerd said with some satisfaction.

While Ingegerd pulled the afterbirth from Cadeyrn, Elva took a knife from her belt one-handed and cut the cord at the baby’s navel. After pressing a palm glowing gold with healing energy to its belly, she handed the child to Ingegerd and leaned over Cadeyrn, putting both hands on him. Cadeyrn’s breathing evened out somewhat as magic flowed through him. His eyes opened once, fluttered shut. Healing magic could hit like a hoof to the head, Sigsteinn knew, especially when you were already worn out.

“Here we go,” Ingegerd said.

Sigsteinn looked up. She’d cleaned the baby and wrapped her in fresh cloth.

“The princess,” she said, carefully placing her on Cadeyrn’s chest.

Cadeyrn opened his eyes. They looked unfocused, but his gaze searched for the little girl. Sigsteinn, too, stared at the child. Her small, closed eyes stood far apart, like Cadeyrn’s, but the tight black curls were just like Agnar’s.

“Does she have wings?” Cadeyrn asked quietly.

Sigsteinn reached over and folded back the blanket. There were crinkled little transparent wings pressed against her back.

“Yes,” he said with a smile.

Cadeyrn nodded his head. “I’m glad. Flying is fun,” he murmured.

Sigsteinn had to laugh, elated, perhaps for the child, or Cadeyrn’s delirious mutterings being quite sweet. He smoothed a hand over Cadeyrn’s head.

His eyes opened once more. “You have to watch her,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Sigsteinn answered, a sense of honour coming over him that Cadeyrn would single him out, even with two more experienced people standing close-by.

Cadeyrn’s eyes closed again, his hand briefly resting on his daughter’s back before it lost all tension.

“He’ll need some rest now,” Ingegerd said, shaking out her wet hands that she’d washed in a second bowl. “You will have an eye on the child?”

“Yes,” Sigsteinn said and, since she laid somewhat precariously on Cadeyrn, he picked her up and held her in the crook of his arm, Cadeyrn still resting against his chest. A growing warmth filled his entire body.


	7. Chapter 7

“They are in here, your Highness.”

Elva’s calm demeanour made Agnar at least attempt to appear a little less like a bloodhunt had just driven him into the castle. The cold wind and rain had beaten him in the face for hours as he raced through the night with only a couple of his knights at his heels, the rest left to oversee the construction that Agnar had only gotten a glimpse of before the messenger had come to inform him that Cadeyrn was ready to deliver the child.

Elva opened the door for him. In the room, Agnar saw Cadeyrn, wrapped in a thick blanket and sound asleep. In a chair by the side of the bed sat Sigsteinn, holding a small bundle of cloth in his arms.

“Look who is late,” he said with a grin as Agnar all but jumped into the room. “Her wings have already dried.”

The door closed softly behind him before Agnar could think to thank Elva, still staring at the tiny child that was dwarfed even further by Sigsteinn’s large hands.

“A girl?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Sigsteinn handed him the child, moving so slowly and carefully that Agnar had to smile.

“I’m not going to drop her,” he said.

Sigsteinn shook his head. “I know. This is just the first time I’ve handed her off, save for giving her to a wet nurse once. Cadeyrn tasked me with watching her. I have a feeling he’d allow you to have her, though.”

The child squinted at Agnar through half-opened eyes. Those were Cadeyrn’s eyes, the colour of fern frost, which looked even sharper set against skin that resembled Agnar’s own. Her tiny hand reached out aimlessly and brushed against his chin. She made a noise of protest as she felt the hard stubble.

“Sorry, I should have shaved,” Agnar said, blissful as he held the girl to his chest. “Is she alright? She was early. And what about Cadeyrn?”

“Elva says she is. A little small, maybe, but that might just be because her other father isn’t very tall.” He glanced at Cadeyrn. “It was a difficult birth. Before the servants changed the sheets, the bed looked like a battlefield. Elva healed him and Cadeyrn has mostly been dead asleep after.”

The picture Sigsteinn painted left Agnar feeling cold. Again he’d left his husband to suffer without him. Though – it did not sound like he’d been completely alone.

“You were here?” Agnar asked, surprised.

“Yes. He allowed me to stay, since you couldn’t be here,” Sigsteinn answered.

Agnar frowned. “What a start to fatherhood I had. I’m glad he had you, at least.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. We couldn’t guess she’d be this speedy.” He rose to slap Agnar on the back. “Now hand over the child, you are getting water on her. You need to undress before you catch your death.”

Chuckling weakly, Agnar gave him the babe. “You’re a real mother hen already,” he teased. “And you’re right.”

Before he left, however, he bowed over Cadeyrn and pressed a kiss on his forehead, already practicing in silence for the apology he would give him when he would wake.

-

However, that moment did not come. By the evening, Cadeyrn was still laid out in his sickbed and running a fever that Agnar could feel when he did so much as hover his hand over Cadeyrn’s forehead.

“Is there nothing you can do?” he asked Elva, who stood between him and Sigsteinn.

“His wounds are all closed, Your Highness. I will try to make him drink whenever he opens his eyes and give him some tea of elderberry and white willow bark,” Elva said. “Other than that, I fear my powers are exhausted – as is his body. I healed him of the wounds he had through his captivity, and then I healed him again after Lady Gudrun got to him, and after the birth... I’m sure you’ve both seen this reaction to repeated healing spells in war camps before.”

Agnar gave a reluctant nod. Healing magic was powerful, but it drew on the body to mend itself and that took energy, which was not endless, especially not in someone already ailing. Cadeyrn had had so little of it to begin with, considering he’d not gotten much sleep until the last two nights before the birth, and the stasis magic had worked on his body for years before that.

Next to Agnar stood Sigsteinn, still holding the child. Agnar and him had passed her around all day, except for brief trips to the wet nurse.

“I’ll talk to Ada if I can bring the girl to her for the next few days when she is hungry. I’m sure Cadeyrn is going to be fine eventually,” Sigsteinn said.

“Yes,” Agnar said, trying to sound more certain than he felt. “I can’t imagine a knight like him dying in his sleep.”

“I’m sure he hates the idea so much that he won’t,” Sigsteinn answered softly. “Come, you need to rest, too. You haven’t slept in almost two days. I’ll get the little one to the wet nurse.”

Reluctantly, Agnar stepped away from Cadeyrn’s bed. He’d been looking in on him every couple of hours today and perhaps it would be better if Cadeyrn got some undisturbed rest.

However, as he followed Elva out of the door, he saw Sigsteinn leaning over Cadeyrn from the corner of his eyes.

“You better get up again or I’ll chase you down in the next life,” Sigsteinn told him, very quietly, squeezing his hand, before he turned to follow Agnar.

-

Cadeyrn did not get better. Sometimes his eyes fluttered open, and by Elva’s advice Agnar and Sigsteinn made him choke down water and tea whenever he seemed close to aware, and told the servants that watched him when they were busy to do the same. However, he did not speak to them and did not ask for his daughter or react when they placed her on his chest or let her fingers curl around his. For all intents, he was still unconscious in those moments.

Agnar spent too much time sitting by Cadeyrn’s bedside with the babe while Sigsteinn kept the castle running. By the morning of the third day, however, he realised that he would have to do his diligence as the king and announce his daughter’s birth to the realm as was tradition, with a feast to which he invited his higher lords and ladies. The worst part about that was that he had to pick a name without consulting Cadeyrn.

“Does he have any family members he might want her named after?” Sigsteinn suggested.

“Too many rather than too few. I could pick his mother’s name, or one of his dead sisters, but I’m not sure which one of them he’d want to commemorate, or if he doesn’t want to seem like he’s playing favourites with the dead at all.”

They both looked down at the cold-eyed child in the crib, who in turn stared up at them expectantly.

What else had been significant about Cadeyrn’s family? Agnar’s thoughts went to the small motte and bailey castle that he’d visited so often by Cadeyrn’s side.

“The oak trees!” he called out, the moment the image flitted into his head.

“Oak trees?” Sigsteinn asked with a small frown.

“Old oak trees stoo in the bailey of Cadeyrn’s castle before the raiders burned them down. Cadeyrn told me they were said to have lived longer than our ancestors have been in this land.” He reached down to pet his daughter’s hair. “I’d call her Deryth. That’s the old word for oak tree. What do you think?”

Sigsteinn nodded slowly.

“There’s much worse things to be named after than oaks. They’re strong, enduring plants. I think Cadeyrn will like it. I do.”

As if in her own response, Deryth swiped lazily for Agnar’s finger. Sigsteinn chuckled.

“I guess she likes it, too.”

Two days later, Deryth of House Dreadfeather was presented to the world in a black dress adorned with silver thread and blue stones, and she bestowed upon the collected nobility that had come to greet the girl her habitually suspicious look. Agnar and Sigsteinn took turns holding her during the feast instead of leaving her in the crib as was usually done, since she had started experimentally flapping her small wings in the last couple of days and was liable to take off on an uncoordinated, accidental flight if not reined in.

Among the visitors were Trygve and Helga Ironwill, Sigsteinn’s parents, alongside his older sister Estrid, the next heir to the Ironwill House. Considering that Trygve and Helga had been very happy about Agnar’s proposal to their son, he hadn’t expected them to look in such good spirits about an heir given to Agnar by another man. Agnar chose to believe that they were happy that Sigsteinn’s life was not going to be in peril due to fertility spells, after all, though they had certainly seemed somewhat unconcerned when Agnar and Sigsteinn had brought up the possibility. “What has to be done will be done,” Trygve had said. “The husband of a king must understand as much.” Back then, Sigsteinn had had the likely correct interpretation that they simply hadn’t wanted him to get cold feet because of the minor threat of death, considering how prestigious this marriage was.

Agnar’s thoughts were still with Cadeyrn even in the crowded great hall. He had carried him up to a guest room a couple of nights ago, since there wasn’t much Elva could do for him at the moment and she needed the rooms for other patients. Besides, Agnar liked the privacy of being allowed to check on him whenever he wanted without running into anyone but the servant he’d stationed in Cadeyrn’s room and he’d realised that the same was true for Sigsteinn, who might have an even harder time explaining his presence at Cadeyrn’s bedside. Distracted this way, Agnar only answered the expected polite questions with the expected polite answers and then managed to join a small group consisting of Birgit and Halvard who kept him looking busy with idle talk of the fishing trade.

Holding his dozing daughter, Agnar was contemplating at what point he could leave his guests to their own devices, seeing as people knew he had a sick lover to worry about, when suddenly, voices swelled behind him and then ebbed away again just as quickly to the sound of hard, quick footsteps. Agnar turned just in time to see Sigsteinn storm out of a door at the end of the hall.

“Excuse me,” he told his councillors before he hurried after him.

Luckily, Sigsteinn had not gotten lost in the tangle of hallways that the Raven’s Nest was made of, but stood at a window only a few steps from the door, looking like he was contemplating whether he should break the glass.

“So what was that?” Agnar asked.

“You want to take a guess?” Sigsteinn asked gruffly.

“You talked to your father and then what?” Agnar said, leaning next to him.

Sigsteinn was not in the habit of blowing up at anyone else in the middle of a function.

Sigsteinn glanced downwards at the babe in Agnar’s arms. “At least I didn’t wake Deryth,” he murmured. “ _Then_ my father suggested that this was the best possible outcome. We have an heir and with Cadeyrn hopefully on his deathbed, I don’t have to worry about him being your concubine anymore. ‘It could not have gone better for you.’ That hateful old man...”

Agnar put his arm around Sigsteinn’s shoulders. He now had the urge to punch Trygve as well, but he realised playing into Sigsteinn’s anger wouldn’t help. “Now I understand why he looked so satisfied. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Neither am I.” Sigsteinn looked up at the sickle of the moon in the sky. “Is it late enough to leave? I want to check on Cadeyrn.”

Agnar handed him the little girl.

“Watch them both for me. I’ll join you as soon as I manage to escape.”

Sigsteinn gave him a grateful nod and pressed a kiss on his lips.

-

“Anything new?”

“Nothing.”

Agnar glanced at Deryth in the spare crib they’d had put up in Cadeyrn’s room. She was sleeping and so was her father. Sigsteinn sat on one of the chairs they’d had dragged into the room.

“He’s not getting worse, but he isn’t getting better, either,” Agnar murmured. “At some point, it’s going to catch up to him that he’s not eating.” With a humourless smile, he looked over at Sigsteinn. “Maybe the gods are punishing me for squandering the gift they made me by bringing him back. I should have protected him.”

The part he didn’t say was that he didn’t know what he’d do if Cadeyrn died now because the reality that it might happen had slowly dawned on him over the last days. He’d mourned him once, he didn’t know if he could do it again without something breaking for good.

“It’s not your fault and he’s not dead yet,” Sigsteinn said stubbornly.

Agnar glanced at him. “You seem to like him more than you used to.”

“Because I don’t want him to die?” Sigsteinn asked, raising a brow.

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s not like I hated him before,” Sigsteinn said after a moment. “I guess I just didn’t understand him.” He smiled. “I still really don’t, but I want to, and I see more what type of man he is now. He pisses me off quite a bit, but you do sometimes, too.” He shook his head. “We talked when he was in labour – told each other what we felt. Great timing on our part. I’m glad we did, though, because after we did, he gave birth to Deryth lying in my arms.”

Once more Agnar wished he had not chosen that damned day to leave, but he was glad that Sigsteinn had stepped up where he could not.

“When I first said I would court him, you told me I had strange taste in men,” he said, smiling.

“Be quiet. You know I hate it when you’re right.”

This could have been such a joyful discovery if Cadeyrn hadn’t laid motionless next to them.

“I think I’m going to stay here tonight,” Sigsteinn said.

“Me too.”

Agnar would rather spend the night sitting on a wooden chair with his husbands and his daughter with him than in a soft bed somewhere alone.

-

Agnar and Sigsteinn had both been dozing on and off, keeping an eye on Cadeyrn and Deryth whenever they woke. It was always the same picture Agnar saw when he opened his eyes, though: both of them sleeping peacefully. A few hours after midnight, Sigsteinn seemed to have drifted into a deeper sleep and Agnar gently took the crown from his head to keep it from falling.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was because of wood creaking. He glanced over at Sigsteinn’s chair, where he still sat with his head leaning against the backrest, and Deryth, who slept like a stone, and then jumped as he saw Cadeyrn sit at the edge of the bed, his bone-coloured skin ghost-like in the dark, looking at him.

“Cadeyrn!”

Agnar got up and framed his face with his hands. It was still warm, but not searing anymore. Cadeyrn touched his hand.

“I saw you. You sometimes gave me water. I tried to speak...”

His voice sounded rough and quiet, but gained in strength as he went on.

“You were sick. Had to sleep off all those healing spells, Elva said.”

Cadeyrn nodded.

“The child. Is she alright?”

“Yes, she’s perfect.”

Agnar glanced over at the crib and Cadeyrn made to rise on unsteady legs. Immediately, Agnar pushed him down.

“You’re recovering properly this time,” he said, “if I have to tie you to that bed. I’ll bring her to you.”

Next to them, Sigsteinn stirred, blinked, then sat up so hard his chair scuffed over the rushes on the floor. “Cadeyrn?”

“Ah, the general is awake. Let us hope no one tries to storm the camp when you are sleeping,” Cadeyrn said flatly.

Grinning, Sigsteinn hauled himself out of his chair to take a closer look at him in the dark.

“You’re lucky I’m happy to see you awake.”

Agnar lifted Deryth from her crib.

“I wouldn’t usually wake you, but you haven’t met this father yet,” he told her as she squinted up at him.

Cadeyrn took her from him, looking at her from all sides, like she was some precious statuette.

“She had to get a name for the celebration,” Sigsteinn said.

“Although if I’d known you would wake tonight, I could have waited,” Agnar said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“No matter. I’m glad she seems healthy. What is her name?” Cadeyrn asked, looking up.

“Deryth.”

Cadeyrn’s eyes widened, then lowered to the child. “That’s a good name,” he said with a slow nod.

Deryth, now properly woken by the sounds and movement around her, looked between them and let out a somewhat plaintive cry.

“She fell asleep pretty early on. I think she’s hungry,” Sigsteinn said, holding out his hands. “Let me see if I can find the wet nurse.”

“No, I want to try,” Cadeyrn said, moving back on the bed to lay against the pillows.

Sigsteinn glanced at Agnar, who shrugged and nodded. He’d rather not that Cadeyrn share what little he had left inside him with anyone else now when there were other ways to get his daughter food, but he also understood why Cadeyrn might not want to let go again for now. As a noble, he wouldn’t have been expected to nurse her himself, but some still did and Cadeyrn hadn’t seen much of his daughter yet.

It seemed like Deryth did find some milk, if her satisfied smacking was any indication. Agnar moved back to his chair, content to just watch them, but Cadeyrn focused back on him once his daughter was properly latched.

“Why are you in a room with a bed this size and sleeping in chairs?” Cadeyrn asked. “I’m not dying here now. You should join me.”

“Are you sure you’d not rather have the room to yourself? We’re knights, too, we can take a night sitting,” Sigsteinn said.

“We have shared a much more uncomfortable bed than this,” Cadeyrn reminded him.

Sigsteinn had to smile. “So we did.”

They crawled into bed at each side of him and Agnar felt something in his cracked heart slide into the right place again as he saw his two husbands shoulder to shoulder, their child with them.

“She tries to fly lately. We always have to hold on to her. I’ve contemplated putting a fishing net over her crib,” Agnar said quietly as he saw Deryth’s wings twitching.

Cadeyrn huffed and shook his head.

“That’s why we mostly carry our children in slings. You can wrap her into a small blanket for sleeping. It doesn’t hurt for the wings to be bound for a while.” Cadeyrn hid a yawn against the back of his hand. “I will show you later.”

They sat in comfortable quiet as Deryth drank. Eventually, Sigsteinn dozed off with his head on Cadeyrn’s shoulder. Agnar couldn’t sleep, but since Deryth had finished, he took her from Cadeyrn so he did not have to worry about her while he dozed, and he watched the three of them. The sun crawling through the window with warm orange beams came much too early to wake his lovers.

“We should probably get up and bid the nobles goodbye,” Agnar mused, looking over as Sigsteinn sat and shook out his hair.

“I absolutely can’t miss that. I need to tell my father about Cadeyrn’s fortunate recovery.”

Sigsteinn grinned, but it fell off his face quickly as he saw Cadeyrn looked at him.

“Why is that?” Cadeyrn asked. “Don’t tell me ‘nothing important’.”

Sigsteinn frowned and Agnar figured that Cadeyrn had stolen his answer. “He was hoping for a babe without a second living father, no more strings attached,” Sigsteinn said, after a moment of hesitation.

“I see. That makes sense,” Cadeyrn responded with his usual cool reason.

“You’re not – I don’t know, worried? Insulted?”

“Why? I don’t care what your father thinks about me, and I know it has nothing to do with you. You tried harder than I did to keep me alive during the birth,” Cadeyrn answered dryly. 

Sigsteinn kissed Cadeyrn. It looked neither like an unfamiliar gesture nor like one they were completely used to yet. Agnar thought that he would like to see them do this much more often. He pressed a kiss on Cadeyrn’s lips, too, when they were finished.

“I will keep her,” Cadeyrn said, reaching for the child. “I’m not tired anymore.”

As Agnar placed Deryth back on his chest, Cadeyrn looked up at Sigsteinn. “Your family do not know the possibilities. If the king allows it, perhaps eventually you’ll have offspring by blood, too, and all without spells that might hurt you,” he said conversationally.

Sigsteinn chuckled, though he stopped as he saw the stern look in Cadeyrn’s eyes and then coloured a little. Agnar burst out with a barking laugh.

“I haven’t been able to make him blush like that in ages,” he said.

“Alright, make your jokes,” Sigsteinn said, running a hand through his tangled curls again, his ears still burning.

Cadeyrn gave a very slim smile.

“I’m not known for telling jokes.”

Agnar rose from the bed as well. “Just for any future record,” he said, a little more seriously, “whatever does happen, as things have gotten a little more – tangled: any child that Cadeyrn carries is a royal child in my eyes.”

“And any child of yours would likely be Sigsteinn’s child, too,” Cadeyrn said.

Sigsteinn raised his head.

“You don’t have to give me that much. I don’t claim such rights...”

“On that first night, I saw you sit with her by my bedside,” Cadeyrn interrupted, as if that was all the explanation it needed. Perhaps it was.

Sigsteinn looked uncertain and hopeful for a moment, like a man who had been handed a present so precious he did not even know how to grasp it, before he nodded his head. Agnar kissed him, felt Sigsteinn’s happy laughter against his mouth.


	8. Chapter 8

Cadeyrn’s condition steadily improved over the next days. Because Agnar and Sigsteinn forced him, he stayed in bed for a couple of them, his feelings of uselessness somewhat alleviated since they left little Deryth in his care. Afterwards, he would walk around the castle having captured her in a sling made from a broad cloth, which was artfully folded to block her wings, but not his.

Thus armoured with the baby, he had begun joining them for audiences, though that proved to be an odd experience. The king and his spouse sat in two wooden thrones, Sigsteinn’s a little smaller and placed to the side, but rather impressive nonetheless, carved with dragons and knights, a whole tale told in its artwork. Concubines had a designated place for these occasions as well, as Halvard had informed them when Cadeyrn had asked, but since they had been status symbols in the distant past, this left Cadeyrn perching on the stone steps that led up to the dais.

“I feel like Knud the Bone-Eater with his eight stolen wives,” Agnar complained, when their first session was over.

“How many of me do you see from up there? I don’t remember the view being so distorted,” Cadeyrn answered, raising his brows.

Sigsteinn grinned, but shook his head. “It _is_ strange,” he said.

“I’d rather be sitting on a chair, but Agnar cannot throw every tradition overboard.”

“Maybe,” Agnar said, but Sigsteinn already knew by his expression that this would not be the last word said in this discussion.

The next week, Cadeyrn would walk outside again to pick up his less physically taxing duties once more. Once more Sigsteinn saw him whenever he crossed the courtyard during the day, sitting by the side of the sand pit in which the knaves and guards trained under his eye, shouting commands. One day, Sigsteinn was with Agnar, who slowed his step to watch the scene with amusement.

“Does the noise not bother her?” he asked, leaning over Cadeyrn’s shoulder to find that Deryth, in her sling as so often, was sleeping peacefully, leaving a little drool on the front of Cadeyrn’s robes.

“She got used to it,” Cadeyrn said. “She will have to lead armies one day. It’s the kind of clamour she cannot be afraid of.”

Sigsteinn laughed. “She’s already three weeks old, so sure, let’s get her started on that.”

“These are skills you have to hone all your life.” Cadeyrn flexed his hand around the wooden balustrade it rested on, glancing up at the two of them. “Elva says I am close to fully recovered. I need to practice my own handling of weapons again. I have barely held one in three years. My muscles might not have deteriorated much, but my reflexes and memory have. I will also call on some of the guards, but I hope you will spar with me, too.”

“You want to take on the king and the general after such a break?” Sigsteinn asked, and before he could stop himself he added, not without an undertone: “You must enjoy being put on your back.”

“We will see which of us three ends up like that when I have found my footing once more,” Cadeyrn said, a glint in his eyes.

-

The marital activity Sigsteinn had alluded to had taken interesting turns as well. Cadeyrn had returned to Agnar’s bedroom as soon as he could. Though he did not say it in as many words, one ailment had not cured another, and the trauma of his captivity still disturbed his sleep as long as fever did not force him under.

Sigsteinn and Agnar were not so young that they could not behave themselves, but eventually it did happen that they had shared a kiss that, like old times, had turned too wild too quickly. Cadeyrn had watched them from half-lidded eyes. When Agnar had reached for him he’d taken his hand, told him they were welcome to do what they liked, but he was still exhausted, and then closed his eyes to pretend to sleep through Sigsteinn fucking Agnar into the mattress.

That uncoiled another knot, lifted from them the instinct to hide, feel odd about kisses or touches the third might not be around for. There was no stopping and stuttering anymore when they walked in on each other. Sigsteinn felt no jealousy when he saw Agnar and Cadeyrn huddle together in a corner of the courtyard to talk or reading the same book together in companionable silence, nor did Agnar seem anything but eager to watch when Cadeyrn and Sigsteinn sat too close while squabbling over council minutiae, where Sigsteinn liked to bite Cadeyrn’s earlobe and jaw when he was being too stubborn, and Cadeyrn chastised him by grabbing his hand and making him trace lines in the texts with his fingers, holding on for way too long. Cadeyrn, meanwhile, looked indulgently pleased when he saw Sigsteinn and Agnar joke and kiss and poke at each other and climb into each other’s lap.

Sigsteinn was rapidly getting used to the second man in their bed, too. One night, Agnar was late speaking to a guest and Sigsteinn, tired to the point of falling over, eventually decided to the demons with waiting and laid down with Cadeyrn. Cadeyrn wordlessly grabbed his hand and Sigsteinn was the one to hold him that night when he began to fuss in his sleep. Agnar woke them both stumbling over his own boots late past midnight, after too much wine, and even Cadeyrn grinned as Sigsteinn laughed at him. Agnar just complained that he had ripped them from their slumber – apparently he had liked the sight. On another evening, Cadeyrn didn’t just close his eyes or left to deal with the babe in the adjacent room while Agnar and Sigsteinn fucked, but he turned around on the pillow and watched them. Sigsteinn didn’t think he’d come so hard in ages as when he felt Cadeyrn’s icy gaze on him while Agnar thrust between his legs.

-

“Aren’t we forgetting anyone? Some official or old friend or delegate waiting for us?”

Sigsteinn laid sprawled on Agnar’s bed, his hair wet from the bath he had been able to take without any interruptions for once, or would have if he hadn’t pulled Cadeyrn in by the arm when he’d happened to walk by, but that one had admittedly been his own fault. Cadeyrn had wanted to bathe as well, and Sigsteinn claimed he had just made the waiting time a little shorter. The massively indignant look Cadeyrn gave him, wet as a dog and shaking his wings like a bee after the rain, had made Sigsteinn laugh and laugh until Cadeyrn had dunked his head under water. Once Cadeyrn had gotten rid of his clothes, they had still laid comfortably together in the bath, though. Sigsteinn knew to take such liberties with Cadeyrn now without really annoying him; in fact, he could go a little further than even Agnar.

“Deryth is sleeping, too,” Cadeyrn pointed out, as if he could not quite believe it himself, hanging up his wet breeches, which had fallen prey to Sigsteinn’s vicious attack.

“I just need to finish this letter, then I’m done as well. The gods are merciful with us tonight,” Agnar joked.

He sat with his back to them at his desk. Cadeyrn joined Sigsteinn on the bed. He was handsome sitting there, looking not at all ashamed or even aware of his nakedness, his thighs apart, back straight, apparently just enjoying the quiet. Sigsteinn allowed him for a moment before he splayed his hand over his leg.

Cadeyrn raised a brow at him. He’d not joined in with Agnar and Sigsteinn until now, but Sigsteinn had believed him that he’d simply not felt up to it. Now that he had mentioned he wanted to get back to combat, however, Sigsteinn thought he could try his luck as well. He let his hand wander upwards, teasing the white curls between his legs with his fingers before dragging his hand up Cadeyrn’s stomach.

Cadeyrn seemed to contemplate for a moment before he moved closer and put his leg over Sigsteinn’s middle, sitting himself down on his stomach.

To the point as always. Sigstein was pretty sure he was already getting hard.

“You are already on your back,” Cadeyrn said quietly. “A good start.”

Sigsteinn rolled his eyes and reached out, ran his hand down Cadeyrn’s back, teasing the silvery wings with his fingers, then digging them into his flesh and grabbing the halves of his ass.

“You don’t know what I can do on my back.”

“We’ll see if you do more than boast, for one.” Cadeyrn leaned closely over him. “I’ve been thinking that I want to try out your cock. Agnar seems to enjoy it.”

The words, spoken with all of Cadeyrn’s usual gravity, sent a shiver down Sigsteinn’s spine. He dropped one hand to take his own cock in his fist and rubbed it against his backside.

“Deal. I want a taste of yours first, though,” Sigsteinn said. “Been looking at it in the bathtub. You ought to have taken off your breeches before you got in, really,” he added innocently. “You have nothing to be shy about.”

He just saw the unimpressed glance Cadeyrn gave him before he leaned down to bite and kiss him at once. Sigsteinn got lost in that sensation gladly, hands running through Cadeyrn’s short hair. When he dropped them again as their kiss broke, he grabbed Cadeyrn’s backside once more and hauled him forward, raising Cadeyrn’s hips so he was in the right position for Sigsteinn to kiss his erect cock.

There was the noise of a chair dragging over the ground and Agnar making a sound of wonder.

Sigsteinn had to laugh and the corner of Cadeyrn’s mouth twitched as well.

“Did you not hear us?” Sigsteinn asked, turning around to look at Agnar.

“I was busy!”

“You always get so lost in your work that you miss all the interesting things,” Sigsteinn admonished him. “Do you know where the oil is?”

Sigsteinn did not wait for an answer and instead got up on his elbows and took Cadeyrn’s cock in his mouth, aware that Agnar was making his way around the room so slow he might have had stones on his feet, entranced with what happening. Meanwhile, he heard Cadeyrn’s breath stutter very briefly. He pumped his cock into Sigsteinn’s mouth – not deep but fast, the barely repressed energy that seemed to hold his muscles taut all focused in that movement.

A hand caressed Sigsteinn’s arm just as he’d started sucking Cadeyrn hard.

“Who wanted this?” Agnar asked. Sigsteinn heard the plop of the cork.

“Me. Put some on his cock,” Cadeyrn said.

Sigsteinn stopped Cadeyrn with a hand at his hip. 

“You haven’t taken a cock in how many years? Prepare him first, Agnar.”

“That’s not necessary-”

“But I enjoy doing it,” Agnar said, cutting the discussion short.

Cadeyrn made a noise between his teeth, but apparently whatever Agnar did with his fingers between his legs erased the other protests he had.

While Agnar managed to make the next thrust of Cadeyrn’s hips against Sigsteinn’s mouth significantly less controlled, Sigsteinn dragged his tongue along his cock, allowing him to push into the slick soft cushion of his tongue for a moment, and then pulled back to leave him almost entirely out in the cold, tightening his lips only around the tip. Cadeyrn froze to not force himself in, though from the small growl that escaped him, it seemed to be an effort. Meanwhile, Sigsteinn heard the slick noise of Agnar’s fingers working in and out of Cadeyrn. Oil dripped over Cadeyrn’s thigh on his chest. Agnar’s free hand was mindlessly caressing Sigsteinn’s shoulder, his chest, his neck, whatever he could reach.

“Enough,” Cadeyrn said resolutely, and Agnar grinned, leaning down to kiss the back of his neck.

“What do you think, Sigsteinn?”

Sigsteinn was about to draw the moment out when Agnar’s oil-wet hand wrapped around his cock and stroked it firmly. He groaned.

“Agnar is on your side,” he scolded Cadeyrn.

“I’m on _my_ side – I want to see you in him.”

Sigsteinn had to laugh.

“Go on, then,” he told Cadeyrn, “this is what you asked for.”

Cadeyrn took a deep breath to steady himself before he placed one strong hand on Sigsteinn’s chest and then lowered himself, without pause, until he sat flush against Sigsteinn’s skin. Again, Sigsteinn found himself moaning out loud.

“Good start,” he admitted.

Cadeyrn smirked, but smugness fell away soon enough, perhaps because the sensations crashing down on him were just as strong as those currently tearing Sigsteinn’s higher thoughts away. He smoothed his hands up Cadeyrn’s sides as Cadeyrn began to ride him like a war horse at a strong, steady pace. Just as Sigsteinn was completely transfixed by that, Cadeyrn turned his head and pulled Agnar closer by the hem of his breeches. Agnar had unlaced them just enough to free his cock and stroke it to the sight of them, but Cadeyrn took him in his mouth. From the corners of his eyes, however, he still looked down at Sigsteinn.

Sigsteinn had to bite his tongue so he wouldn’t come right away.

Agnar’s hand tightened around the pillar that held the upper frame of the bed, his muscles bulging. Sigsteinn had always loved watching his body at work and seeing the only two men in the world he wanted in his bed both shaking with pleasure was driving him mad at great speed. His hands gripped Cadeyrn’s hips and he started meeting him, fucking into him hard.

Cadeyrn had kept up an admirable rhythm, one hand still on Sigsteinn’s chest, the other on the base of Agnar’s cock, his head bobbing back and forth, but Sigsteinn disturbed that effort. He saw Cadeyrn’s thighs twitch as he resisted his onslaught, but Sigsteinn was strong and he had just one man to service and so he had Cadeyrn bouncing in his lap soon. Meanwhile, Agnar was holding Cadeyrn’s head gently in place as he fucked his mouth. He’d never seen as much colour in Cadeyrn’s face as now when he’d lost the reins entirely, fighting for control, but clearly enjoying pulled apart in two directions. Sigsteinn had a feeling he could have ended it with one firm grip on his cock, but he decided to enjoy the sight of Cadeyrn like this for just a little bit longer. Of course, Sigsteinn could only hold on for a few precious moments himself before he came.

Sigsteinn needed a deep breath before he managed to unlatch his hand from Cadeyrn’s hip and grab his cock. A brush of his fingers was all it took to send Cadeyrn over the edge. With his hand still coated in Cadeyrn’s seed, Sigsteinn joined his hand on the base of Agnar’s cock, allowing Cadeyrn to drop his own. Cadeyrn took a few deep, shuddering breaths, mouth still wide open so Agnar could continue to take it. Agnar looked down at them wide-eyed, running his hands through their hair. Cadeyrn pushed his mouth down on Agnar just when he came to lap up as much of his seed as he could.

Sigsteinn tugged Cadeyrn downwards when he was finished, rolling him sideways into the sheets. Agnar fell down heavily next to them.

“It’s good to be the king’s husband as well, don’t you think?” Sigsteinn muttered, glancing at Cadeyrn.

And though Cadeyrn looked hesitant, he gave him another one of those rare softer smiles and said: “Yes.”

Since no one could dispute that Agnar had two husbands, after all.

Sigsteinn laid between them that night, Agnar curled against his side and Cadeyrn sleeping with his hand held in a tight grip. At some point, Agnar got up and acquired a mewling Deryth, placed her on Cadeyrn’s chest, and, half-awake, Sigsteinn thought that he wanted his life to continue like this.


	9. Chapter 9

“It’s not the throne for the husband. It’s the throne for the heir.”

Agnar, Sigsteinn and Cadeyrn stood before the dais as several servants moved a third high-backed chair made of dark wood onto the stone elevation, leaving Agnar’s seat framed on both sides.

“I see,” Cadeyrn said doubtfully.

“It just so happens that my heir cannot sit by herself, so for the foreseeable future you must have her on your lap. You already hold her during the audiences, anyway.”

“Why does she need to be here for the audiences? She cannot speak or understand words.”

Cadeyrn looked down at the girl strapped to his chest, who was still asleep.

“Why does she need to be in the practice yard? You said it yourself: certain skills have to be honed early.”

Next to Cadeyrn, Sigsteinn broke out into laughter. He knew as well as Cadeyrn that Agnar had beaten him with his own words.

“You know people will realise what you are doing,” Cadeyrn pointed out.

They were the thrones of his husbands, both of them.

Agnar shrugged. “I don’t care at this point,” he said. “I never drank or whored or emptied the country’s coffers gambling. I had no petty feuds and caused no wars. People will have to live with this transgression. It’s not like I forced this situation. Fate has made it so, and fate is the will of the gods.”

“You know you’re not going to change his mind,” Sigsteinn said, his large hand grabbing Cadeyrn’s shoulder. “Nor mine.”

“Well... thank you,” Cadeyrn said slowly.

He had not resented his position at the foot of the stairs. As long as he went to bed with his husbands, he knew where his place truly was, and the rest was spectacle for the world. Yet, one of the things he had always loved about Agnar was that he would drive himself to distraction to avoid doing harm to a lover, and one of the things he had come to love about Sigsteinn was that his sense of justice allowed no less than this, either, since he saw them in truth as equals.

He would have squabbled more, but they both seemed so glad looking at the row of thrones that Cadeyrn decided to keep his peace, really too happy to argue himself.


End file.
